A Suitable Boy

by Vikram Seth

In fact, if he’s like Arun, he’s probably thinking at this very moment: “Awful service in this room; I must speak to the manager so that I can get my nutrients on time. And they should adjust the temperature of the amniotic fluid in this indoor swimming pool, as they do in five-star wombs. But what can you expect in India? Nothing works at all in this damned country. What the natives need is a good solid dose of discipline.” Perhaps that’s why he kicked me.’

Previously politics was not profitable. You languished in jail, your children starved. Now politics is profitable, and naturally the kind of people who are interested in making money are keen to join the game. If we move out, they move in. It is as simple as that.

Dipankar was fond of making remarks such as, ‘It is all the Void,’ at breakfast, thus casting a mystical aura over the scrambled eggs.

Mr Justice Chatterji could not help smiling, but the smile disappeared as he looked at the two pages he had opened for comparison. In microcosm those two pages reflected the passage of an empire and the birth of two countries from the idea—tragic and ignorant—that people of different religions could not live peaceably together in one. With the red pencil that he used for notations in his law-books, Mr Justice Chatterji marked a small ‘x’ against those names in the 1947 volume that did not appear in 1948, just one year later. This is

Maan did not think of the romantic associations of the sound (‘pee-kahan? pee-kahan?’ Where is my love? Where is my love?). He wanted the bird to be quiet so that he could concentrate on the voice of his own heart.

Dr Kishen Chand Seth’s idea of an ideal afternoon of bridge was furious, ruthless play combined with continuous conversation; and his idea of entertaining conversation was a series of small shocks and explosions.

‘Well, Dada—’ said Dipankar. ‘Is that really his fault? He’d probably think we’d make a couplet out of it. No one ever talks to anyone in our family, we just exchange brilliances.’

And thus his meetings ended, and on he went to the next one, always late, always impatient, a man whose greatness of heart won the hearts of others, and whose meandering pleas for mutual tolerance kept a volatile country, not merely in those early and most dangerous years but throughout his own lifetime, safe at least from the systemic clutch of religious fanaticism.

There was a commotion at the gate. A group of five hermaphrodites, hearing that there was a wedding in progress, had turned up, and were singing and dancing and demanding money. So shameless were their gestures that the nearby guests were turning away in shock, but Sunil Patwardhan rushed over with his friends to enjoy the fun. Dr Kishen Chand Seth, brandishing his stick, was trying to drive them away; but they were making lewd remarks about both it and him. They would have to be paid to go away. He offered them twenty rupees, and their leader told him that he wouldn’t even service him for that amount. Dr Kishen Chand Seth hopped around in fury, but he could do nothing. They demanded fifty, and they got