A Fine Family: A Novel (24 page)

Arjun woke up the next morning determined to find out what had happened the night before, and if Karan had been present at the Governor’s party. He was distracted all day in school, thinking of Priti and Karan. After school he rushed to her house, where he discovered, alas, that she had left early to visit a friend. One of the servants mentioned, however, that she planned to go to the Club at her usual time. He resolved immediately to go to the Mall and wait for her there.

Since he knew she would pass that way on her way to the Green Room, he arrived early and waited for her near the entrance of the chemists’, Sahib Singh & Sons. At last, after a quarter-of-an-hour, he saw Priti, and eagerly went up to her. She wore a striking red sweater. It was clear that she was not pleased to see him.

‘Hello, Priti!’ he said. ‘I knew you would come by, and I thought I would walk with you to the ADC.’

‘I haven’t got much time, since I told Neena I’d see her at 5. 30.’

‘Do you mind if I walk with you?’ he implored her.

‘If you want to,’ she said indifferently.

He walked with her without saying a word. He felt hurt. He tried to think of something to say before asking about the party. But he could not. She did not bother to say anything either. She walked rapidly as if she wanted to be rid of him. He felt ashamed. He hated her. Soon they came to the gate of the ADC and she walked in without saying goodbye.

He stood at the entrance for a long time, feeling miserable. He should have gone home, but he could not. His feet felt heavy as if they were glued to the spot. He decided to wait till she came out. The doorman looked at him suspiciously at first, then ignored him. While he was hanging about waiting for her, he thought he saw someone who looked just like Priti. His heart leapt and he hurried to catch up with her. As he was about to speak to her he realized that she was a total stranger. He blushed and apologized for his mistake. An hour-and-a-half later she came out. He saw that she was alone, and he was relieved. When she saw him she turned away her face. But he went up to her and asked if he could walk home with her.

‘If you want to,’ she said. ‘Why did you wait for me?’

‘Because I wanted to.’

‘I say, don’t you have anything better to do with your time?’

He looked at her as they walked, and could think of nothing to say. He again sought desperately for a remark which might amuse her, and draw her to him. She turned around to see if anyone was looking, almost as though she did not want to be seen with him.

‘Did anyone see you waiting for me?’ she asked.

‘Are you ashamed of me?’ he asked boldly.

He wished with all his heart that she would like him. He seemed to constantly humiliate himself. They walked on quietly. He had a sudden thought. Perhaps if he made her feel that he was from a rich and important family she might be more interested in him. He concocted a story about a rich uncle who had hordes of servants and jewels, a fleet of cars and even an elephant. He let his imagination run as he described his uncle’s meetings with Maharajas and Ministers. By the time he finished, they had reached her house.

‘So, you see, we are well connected,’ he said.

She smiled.

‘You don’t believe me.’

‘No,’ after a pause she said, ‘Goodbye! I am going down to Delhi to spend the Diwali holidays with my cousins. You need not stop here anymore.’

‘Will I see you again?’ he implored feebly.

‘Perhaps.’ And she turned to open the gate.

‘Wait,’ he shouted. She was surprised at the vehemence in his voice. He had tears in his eyes. ‘Priti, why are you being beastly with me?’ he asked.

‘I don’t like to be surprised,’ she answered coldly, and she tilted her head audaciously.

‘I must know something: was Karan at the party last night?’

‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘Were you spying on me last night?’

‘No, no. I thought I saw him as I was leaving,’ he said reassuring her.

‘And what if he was? What difference does it make?’ she asked.

‘No, nothing whatsoever,’ he replied. ‘You were so kind to me last evening. Why are you angry now?’

‘I don’t like spies or surprises.’ And she went in.

He slowly walked back home. He felt miserable. It seemed to be the lowest point of his life. How could he allow himself to be humiliated like this? He should have gone away after greeting her outside Sahib Singh’s. How could she respect him if he kept thrusting himself upon her like this? On his way home he reenacted countless ways by which he could have made a better impression on Priti.

When he lay in bed that night, he continued to see her walking into the ADC. He pictured her sitting in the Green Room drinking tea, and being admired by Karan. He thought drowsily of her long face, her rosy skin, her dark, sparkling eyes, her full mouth and the tilt of her head. It was obvious that she did not like him. She was clearly ashamed to be seen with him. Why had she changed just like that? Why couldn’t he just forget her? Why must he allow himself to be so desperately unhappy? Yes, this was the end. He must resolve never to see her again.

But the next moment he wanted to be with her; he wanted to look into her eyes; he wanted to touch her. He wondered if this was what the books called love.

He had not thought of love, although he had read about it in European novels. It had been a mysterious, forbidden thing. In the books it always seemed to bring happiness and ecstatic bliss. To him it had brought only unhappiness and grief. He yearned for her all the time. It was a painful hunger in his heart. He wanted her to be his. He was jealous of Karan. Each time he left her, there was only misery. He wondered how he was going to endure his pain. He turned on his pillow and he thought of ways he could get through the hours that lay ahead before dawn.

Twenty days after Dasehra came Diwali, the festival of lights. It celebrated King Rama’s triumphant return home to Ayodhya with his wife, Sita, after fourteen years of exile. The last episode in this exile was the defeat of Ravana in Lanka. The exuberant people of Ayodhya greeted their great monarch’s return by lighting their houses.

Seva Ram’s family like everyone else recreated this event every year on Diwali by placing hundreds of clay lamps, filled with oil, along the perimeter of their house. After illuminating their home they went around the town to deliver boxes of sweets to their friends, and to look at the lights of the other houses. It was a thrilling sight to watch hundreds and thousands of twinkling lamps light up the dark night. After returning they watched from Pine Villa the skies of Simla dazzle with brilliant firework displays. When he was younger, it used to be the most exciting day in Arjun’s life. For days on end he would talk about it. Diwali also coincided with the Hindu New Year, and that meant new clothes, pocket money, and school holidays.

This year Arjun had mixed feelings about the approaching Diwali holidays. He was older and increasingly indifferent to the lights and the fireworks. He was happy about the end of the school term, but he dreaded the term report since he had done poorly in his exams. Most of all he felt irritated, restless, and miserable because he could not get Priti out of his mind. He wanted to possess her. It was a ceaseless hunger, the like of which he had not known before. Despite the constant pain and the humiliation which he suffered, he could not do without her. He was depressed at the thought of the Diwali holidays because he would not get to see her for two weeks.

The last day of school was cold, wet and desperate. He was walking home quickly to avoid getting wet. His heart was heavy because of the miserable report card in his bag. There was no hope of seeing Priti after yesterday’s humiliating scene. Sick with misery, he did not notice that he had passed the round post box, which was a prized signal that Priti’s house was round the corner.

Suddenly, she was before him. She stood framed in the main doorway of her house. She was wearing a pink raincoat and hat and black gum boots, but her face was wet. She had a distant and wistful look, and she appeared to be waiting.

When she saw him, she ran down to the gate. She opened the gate and asked him to come inside. She took him to the kitchen and gave him hot milk and biscuits.

‘I was rather beastly with you yesterday,’ she said. ‘You know, I did not expect to see you, and it came as a surprise.’

‘It’s all right,’ he said.

His heart suddenly felt lighter. He sensed that a painful burden had been lifted. He was thankful for any kindness from her. He wanted to express his gratitude, but could think of nothing to say. He wanted to tell her how much she meant to him, but he could not.

She took him upstairs to her room. There was a log fire burning in the fireplace, and Priti’s face glowed in its reflection. She went across to the window, and he followed her. She pointed to the rain outside. As she did so, her wrist and arm brushed his, and he felt that her body was smoother and softer than anything he had felt before. She suddenly looked straight and hard into his face as she had done the first day they had met at the Green Room. He felt nervous and uneasy. Then she smiled in the same way.

‘You may kiss me if you want to,’ she said.

He was confused.

‘Have you ever kissed a girl before?’ she asked.

‘No,’ he replied.

‘Do you know how to kiss?’

He shook his head.

‘I can show you if you want.’

He nodded nervously.

‘Close your eyes first.’

He did as he was told. He felt her draw closer. Her breathing was heavier. He felt her hands on his shoulders. He waited, but nothing happened.

‘Open your eyes. You look so odd with your eyes closed.’

He opened his eyes and stepped back. He saw her brown eyes surrounded by long, brown lashes, thick braids, her soft skin and her red cheeks and red lips.

‘Come near. Nearer,’ she whispered. ‘I won’t hurt you.’

She grabbed hold of his shirt and her face became flushed. He looked eager and apprehensive.

‘You may put your arms around me,’ she softly said.

Obediently he bent over her, his arms clumsily around her neck. His heart beat violently. She raised herself and threw her bare arms around him, tossed her hair back with a quick motion of her head, and kissed him on the lips. Then she slipped away to the other end of the room. She smiled faintly. His heart was beating anxiously. He was desperately keen to please her.

‘You do like me, don’t you?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he said hoarsely.

She turned around and ran downstairs. As he was leaving the house she said, ‘It is Diwali tomorrow. We are having some people for tea, including Karan. Mother asked me to invite you. So be sure to come.’

When he returned home that evening, the rain had stopped. The grass was wet, and there was a strong smell of the earth. A nightingale sang in fitful snatches from below. The same road to the house on which he had walked hundreds of times seemed transformed into a magical path. He looked up at the partially cleared sky. The moon had risen. He did not deserve such happiness, he felt.

The next day was Diwali, and Tara and Seva Ram were reluctant to let Arjun go out alone to Priti’s house. Diwali was a family affair. Arjun persuaded them, however, by saying that he would return early; besides Karan would be there too. Tara gave him a box of sweets to give to Amrita.

‘Be sure to bring Karan back with you,’ said Tara as he was leaving the house.

He nodded.

‘Shall we pick you up on the way to the lights?’ she asked.

‘No. . .no, it is a party, Mother. You cannot just drop in.’

‘But it is Diwali, Arjun. Everyone visits each other on Diwali,’ she said.

Tara would have liked to visit the Mehtas, but she let it go when she saw how embarrassed Arjun felt. From Arjun’s clothes and manner, and his strange behaviour of the past weeks, she guessed something was going on. She had meant to speak to him about his school marks, but she did not want to spoil his Diwali. She told Seva Ram that she would wait until after school opened. She was secretly happy that Arjun was welcome at the Mehta house, since ‘they belonged to the right society’. She felt that he would make the right friends and learn the right manners, and who knows, even make the right contacts that would be useful in the future when he went out to work. From Bauji she had learnt that contacts meant a great deal.

Tara dreamed that Arjun would grow up into a well-bred, handsome and intelligent man who would be good at games and studies. She wanted him to go to a fine college in Delhi like St. Stephens, where he would acquire the necessary intellectual equipment, but not necessarily become a scholar. Then he would be ready to join the civil service or one of the professions, or industry or any of the pleasant niches for which the post-Independence Indian bourgeoisie groomed its young. After Arjun was settled she would marry him to a good Punjabi girl with the same background and education. He would join a club, and thus be fit to become a member of the establishment, to rub shoulders with the intellectual elite of the land. And she hoped he would want to repeat the same process with his children. It was important to her that he should have more money than they did, so that he would be able to send his children to boarding schools like Mayo or Doon, and if possible to a good University abroad, such as the Ivy League colleges in America or Oxford and Cambridge in England. This was Tara’s recipe for an enviably happy life.

Soon after Arjun left the house, Tara and Seva Ram settled down before the fireplace, he to reading the newspaper and she to her knitting. Seva Ram was nearing his forty-fifth birthday and Tara was in her late thirties. Neither had altered visibly, apart from the normal changes brought on by age. The Himalayan air had suited them and they both looked healthy. Seva Ram continued to comb his curly hair backwards, as he had always done, except there were fewer hairs to comb each succeeding year. His round eyes peered sincerely from behind his spectacles, and his prominent nose stood out as much as ever. Because of a digestive problem, he was not able to put on weight, and continued to appear small and frail as he had always done.

Tara, although never beautiful, was still attractive in her middle years. She had looked after herself. She was especially proud of her jet black hair. The soft expression in her dark, brown eyes, her pretty, curved upper lip, the fine, oval-shaped face, and a healthy colour on her cheeks from the Himalayan air, all these made her look like a much younger woman. Her face shone by the light of the lamp beside which she was knitting.

Giving her husband a sidelong glance with her eyes, she asked, ‘Well, shall we go to the Mall and look at the lights? We can also drop in on the Dewans and the Paltas and deliver their sweets.’

Seva Ram looked comfortable before the fire. He unenthusiastically replied, ‘Without the children, the lights are not much fun. But if you want to give the sweets. . .’

‘I can always send the sweets with the servant,’ she interrupted. ‘It’s too bad that Arjun has to be away on Diwali evening,’ she added with a touch of sadness.

‘Well, he insisted on going to the Mehtas’ party, and. . .’

‘And we are here all alone on Diwali evening,’ she said.

After a pause, he said, ‘Why did Bauji have to leave before Diwali?’

‘Some urgent work came up in Hoshiarpur, I think,’ she replied curtly. Besides, he probably wanted to be with Bhabo on Diwali.’ After a pause, Tara said irritably, ‘Oh, I wish you were not so antisocial. We could do so much with our evenings. There are such interesting people in Simla. You don’t even care that we don’t receive invitations from Raj Bhavan. All our friends in the department do. When Asha Vasudeva discovered that they had not been invited to the last “At Home”, she made Lekh go to Government House and get an invitation from the Governor’s ADC.’

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ said Seva Ram.

She sighed and said, ‘Ah, I would love to be at the Mehtas’ with Arjun this evening. The lights, the silk saris, the glamorous people—how lovely!’

‘And totally unsuitable for a schoolboy!’

‘But think of the people he meets. I want him to have the social life that we never had.’

‘You are allowing him to be spoiled, Tara. They are the wrong kind of people,’ he said angrily.

‘But they are so cultured.’

‘He is learning bad habits. They drink, they smoke, they eat meat.’

‘Good heavens, the whole world eats meat,’ she said with a laugh.

‘Well I don’t want him to acquire the animal’s karma, and carry that burden along with all the other karmas he will have to bear through life.’ After a pause he added, ‘They are not our type of people, Tara.’

‘And what are
our
type of people, may one ask?’ said Tara with irritation.

‘Well, god-fearing people, who love the guru and visit the ashram.’ he replied defensively.

‘Just as I thought. In short, boring, dull, smelly, lower middle class clerks.’

‘There are others too,’ he said weakly.

‘They may be
your
type of people but not
our
type of people.’

‘I still feel he is in the wrong company, Tara. You know, I would rather he spent his free time playing sports and games with other boys. At his age, I only had thoughts of studies and of the guru. Arjun is a
brahmachari,
and he should think only of studies and god. Look at the clothes he wears! He wants to join the Green Room; he wants to learn skating.’

‘But good heavens, he is growing up,’ she smiled again. ‘It is normal to want these things. He wants to have the opportunities that you and I did not.’

Seva Ram rose up abruptly. He began to pace the floor. His face became more animated. So far he had been speaking in an even, natural way. Now for the first time that she could remember, he raised his voice, and Tara became a little afraid.

‘That Mehta girl is corrupt, Tara. She has turned his head completely. Is it surprising that he is doing poorly in his studies? She is toying with him. The other day I saw them walking on the Mall. He was walking behind her, pleading with her about something, behaving like her servant. I tell you, Tara, the poor boy is going to get hurt. He is out of his element.’

Seva Ram sat down abruptly. There were tears in his eyes, and he turned his face away. Such an outburst was uncharacteristic of him, and he was ashamed of himself. Tara was moved. In twenty years of their marriage, she had not heard him raise his voice. Her heart went out to him. He had looked handsome as he sincerely tried to tell her what was wrong. And the thing was that he was right. She too had the same fears about Priti.

What a jewel of a man her husband was, she felt, as she realized that he had never raised his voice before. She had not been aware of it until he did. And he cared deeply for his son. She was touched. She thought about all the husbands who were constantly nagging their wives and their children. He was tolerant in comparison. He had never tried to force his strong religious beliefs on them. Nor had he ever insisted that she visit the ashram. True, he still sent a fourth of his salary to the ashram and that remained an irritant between them. But that was a little thing before his other virtues. She had sometimes wondered whether he really cared for them. He had seemed so quiet and completely removed from everything. Over the years he had changed. Now she was convinced that he did care. As she saw him sitting there, looking quiet, humble and sincere, she felt a freshness which was the exact opposite of the cynical and effete feeling that Karan inspired in her. She seemed to understand her husband for the first time. He was not cold but merely remote. He was sincere but aloof. He seemed to listen from far away, and he seemed to listen with his eyes. The only word to describe him, she felt, would be ‘saintly’. Filled with tenderness, she went up to him and embraced him. She put her head on his shoulders and she wept.