The Splendor Of Silence (23 page)

Chapter
Twelve.

I was slow to reake that the free and easy attitudes of the British in agland stiflened somewhat imperially east of Sued ... the social life of Anglo-htdia was very narrow in its outlook and restricted in its scope . there appeared to be no intellectual life whatsoever . which, I think, was a pit, since ... occasional free and open discusuon on what was going on in the world around one, might have brought about a greater understanding between the two races, or at any rate reduced .. . misunderstanding.

--N. B. Bonnie, Under Two Mane, 1970

I
t was ten minutes before Raman woke from his pleasant musings about Sam. He sighed. What foolish thinking this was for him, Mila could never marry Sam. His society would not allow it or accept it, and neither would any American society. Besides, it was futile to look any further for a husband for Mila.

It was at these times, when he thought of Mila's marriage, or of Kiran or Ashok, which was most of the time, that Raman missed Lakshmi with a huge, gaping ache in his heart. She would not have railed against his decisions about Mila and Kiran as Pallavi did.

He laughed aloud, his voice cutting through the silence in his office. His mother had chosen Lalcslimi for one reason alone--the color of her skin. In all other factors--caste, background, dowry, family status--she had been vetted and approved by the elders. But at the girl-viewing ceremony, when Raman first saw Lakshmi, he remembered that his mother had taken her to one side on the pretext of a talk, and clasped her arm at the elbow. Raman's mother had been the fairest in their family for generations--no other daughter-in-law could match that virtue. She had been brought in (other things being equal, of course) quite specifically to breed color into the line, or to more specifically breed a lack of color into the line. But Raman had taken, quite perversely, after his father's family and had come out like charcoal.

So Raman's mother had laid her arm next to Lakshmi's and glanced down surreptitiously at their touching skins on the inside of their elbows, where the real color was, and found them to match. Actually, Lakshmi had been just a shade lighter, but it boded well for future children.

Mila and Ashok took after Raman, lighter hued than their father, but still dark enough to be called coffee colored. Kiran had delighted his grandmother and his mother.

Raman knew that a lot of his ideas about Lakshmi were long dead, that they would not have fit the living woman, that had she lived, she would probably have been very much like Pallavi in restrictions imposed on Mila. But he had been in love with the idea of Lakshmi--of a wife, rather before he married her. On him had not been the onus of choice, the fear of disappointment or subsequent distress; that responsibility belonged to the elders of the family who had decided whom he would marry. Lakshmi had satisfied his ego, for all love--despite popular opinion--is not selfless at its very beginning. Raman fell into love with his wife because she took good care of him, tended to his wants before hers, and thought of him at every turn. He reciprocated with a gentleness and intensity. Over the years she loved him deeply too, in every sense of the word, for what had begun for her in an emotion tied to duty blossomed under his care.

He had known, when he married Lakshmi, that she was not particularly intelligent, in the way that men were taught to be; nor educated--she had failed her fourth standard exams and had never tired her brain after that; that she would not fit into his ICS world with its so-British drinking and clubs and parties. He had still loved her, knowing all of this about her. It was a simple love, based on joy and laughter, and few expectations. Lakshmi might not have known how to drink a gin and tonic at the club and still keep her head, but she knew what made Raman happy.

Yet he wanted Mila to be different. He wanted her to ride and read an
d d
rive and make her own choices. It was a radical way of thinking. Raman had not been brought up thus--he had been taught to respect his elders unquestioningly, to defer to their judgments, to believe as they did. But he had also seen too many men make the sudden leap from believer to elder when their time came, with no originality of thought, no allowed period of transition, no making of mistakes, and certainly no redeeming of them. Raman wanted Kiran, Mila, and Ashok to make their own mistakes.

"Papa."

Raman looked up. "Come in, Kiran."

He watched as his oldest child came into the room and sat down on the chair opposite him. Kiran swung his legs over one of the chair's arms, leaned his back against the other, and smiled at his father. Raman had always wanted a daughter, always, even though his society told him that it was important to have sons as a crutch in old age--someone to set light to the funeral pyre to send his father's bodily remains to heaven, someone to perform those sacred rituals that would help his father's soul gain eventual absolution. Even so, Mila, his second child, had been the fulfillment of a desire. But Raman had not been ready for the ambush of love he had felt when Kiran was born. He had taken after Lakshmi in everything, his huge, heavily lashed eyes, the moonlight sheen to his skin, the gloss in his hair. He had looked so different that Raman had felt as though he was a caretaker to an adopted child, not one made from his body. But the force of love had come that first morning.

Now Kiran had grown into a tall (another facet of Lakshmi's family) and handsome young man, and Raman felt that same sense of early surprise that he had made this child.

"Where were you last night?" Raman asked. "You came home late." Kiran straightened in the chair, and a bit of stubbornness firmed his mouth. "With the Rifles."

"At their club?"

"Yes."

Raman began to shake his head and stopped himself in time, but he could not seem to stop his words. "Kiran, you must think of doing something. How long can you be here? What do you want to do? Tell me, we can figure this out together."

"I did not come here for a lecture, Papa," Kiran muttered.

"Why then?" Raman asked. "For money? Have you run out?"

A flush began on Kiran's neck and rushed upward to the roots of his hair. So he had come for money, Raman thought. Why could he not make some on his own? At his age, Raman had been married for a good eight years, had a child already, Mila was on the way, and he had been well settled in the ICS. Kiran had returned from England after failing his ICS examinations for the second time. The money, the expense, was nothing compared to the shame of failure, and Raman felt it keenly. More so than Kiran, he thought with a prick of irritation, who spent all of his time drinking beer and gimlets at the Rifles' clubhouse or at the Victoria Club. It was not just Kiran's reputation, it was not Kiran's reputation--Raman amended in his head--that was at stake. It was Raman's. Kiran was too young to possess something as lofty as a name; his only designation was as the political agent's son; why could he not have passed his examinations? Kiran was not stupid.

"I hate to beg, Papa--," Kiran began.

"Then don't."

Kiran reddened again and his body grew slack in the chair. He did not even know how to sit in front of his father, Raman thought. Perhaps he had been too easy with his children in giving them choices in their lives. Perhaps the old ways were right after all. For Raman there had been no option other than the ICS. But it was ridiculous to talk of the ICS as though it was the hut option; it was the best option in India. The civil servants were the heaven born, nominated by God to rule the common. For Raman it had been the fulfillment of a dream. He was finally a sahib. A brown sahib, but a sahib nonetheless. How could Kiran not have wanted this?

"You are not unintelligent, Kiran," Raman said slowly. "How did you manage to fail the examinations?"

"I didn't fail the written examinations," Kiran said, finally heated enough to swing his legs back on the floor and sit up in his chair. "It was the damn viva voce, to test my 'alertness, intelligence, and general intellectual outlook.' What a bloody crock that was. It was one chap who did me in. The others were kind."

"Don't swear," Raman said. "Who was he?"

"I can't remember his name now. Some history master from Balliol. I don't think he had ever been to India, and only knew of it academically. But he had connections and that got him on the board."

"What did he ask you?"

"How does it matter now?" Kiran's voice was bitter. "There's no going back, is there?" He went on. "He wanted to know if Jai was truly loyal to the empire's interests, if Raja Bhimsen wasn't a manipulative bastard in getting Jai instated as heir, if he wasn't a bigger bastard in getting you to Rudrakot. He wanted to know if I had my finger on the pulse of Rudrakot's politics. I told him where I thought my finger should go."

They were silent for a long while and Raman felt a flood of anger inside him. In the end, it had come to this. Because Kiran was his son, because there was still a great deal of upset over Raman's appointment to Rudrakot, Kiran had not passed his viva, his interview. In all fairness, Raman thought, even in the midst of his rage, Kiran did not know how to control either his tongue or his emotions. Vivas were meant to be chatty and polite. A little deference, a great deal of platitudes, some answers that sounded intelligent, whatever they might actually be, a shaking of hands. Do your job there, get out of the room, become an ICS officer. The viva was a formality at best, not meant to fail candidates for the ICS. He let Kiran's last sentence pass away, mostly because he did not quite understand it, and because he thought it was something rude that he did not want explained. Where had Kiran learned such language?

"What are you going to do today?" he asked in a gentler voice than he had so far used with his son.

Kiran shook his head sullenly, a heavy cast of dark over his face. "I do not know."

"Mils and Ashok have gone to the mela with our guest. You should go too."

"It's at the club?"

"Yes, the Victoria."

Kiran glanced up at his father. "Who is this Sam Hawthorne?"

"He is here to recuperate from injuries sustained on his flight from Burma last month," Raman said. "I know little else about him. He has been quiet so far."

A little smile lit up Kiran's mouth and eyes, and Raman felt a deluge of love. How lovely he looked when he smiled, more now than ever, since he smiled so much less. "You took him in, then, Papa? You have always had a propensity for sentimentality and nonsense. This Hawthorne chap could have stayed at the club."

Raman shrugged. "I like him. He is different somehow, engaging." "When does Jai return?"

"In a month, I think. I heard from him yesterday."

"I'll go," Kiran said, rising from his chair. He leaned over and offered his hand to his father and Raman clasped it with his own and then, briefly, held it against his chest and patted it with his left hand.

"Ask Sayyid to give you something from the money box," he said. "Thank you, Papa."

When Kiran had left, Sayyid came in with the tea tray and a plate of scones with butter and orange marmalade. Raman ate and drank slowly, not minding that the chai cooled in its cup, for it was only his morning coffee that got his heated devotion.

At least, he thought, there were no further embarrassments to come from his children. Kiran would find his way; he would help him. Would Ashok eventually consider the ICS too? How splendid it would be to have two sons, both his sons, in the service. How his fellow officers would admire him. Then, perhaps, Kiran and Ashok would have sons too who would follow their grandfather's example and join the service. They could be a family of ICS officers with a lengthy tradition.

Raman put his teacup down and bit into a scone. He had little idea of how his own years in the service were going to come to an end. Here they were, in 1940, but a few years at most from independence from the Raj. The ICS was comprised mostly of British officers, and they would all leave when India wrenched herself away from British rule. Who would be left then? A few old-timers like him, a new bunch of upstart recruits with nothing like the pukka sahib's love for the country, or sense of the people, or immersion in their districts' problems--it did not bode well even for Raman, let alone Kiran or Ashok.

This life, his life, was built by a British institution, nurtured and nourished by it; Raman had become a sahib in this best of traditions in India, which was, after all a British construct--how would it restructure itself in an independent India? The ICS upheld India, it was India, he had always thought. Who would take the places of those who would leave? And never once, in all of his years in the ICS, had he felt an intruder or a misfit on the basis of the color of his skin. He knew his presence was resented at Rudrakot as a political agent, but only because he sliced away a part of th
e r
esident's duties, because it was unusual for a princely state to have both positions serving the same need. The British were fair masters though--else he would not be here in Rudrakot. Why did the freedom fighters not see all this change, why did they insist upon complete freedom?

The truth was, Raman thought sadly, that Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Nehru were hurtling them all toward an ideology, a dogma that sounded and seemed nice enough but would not translate quite so easily into practice for all of their rhetoric. Raman's loyalties lay with his king, in England, and to India, which was after all a part of the crown, the jewel in Britain's crown, according to Churchill. Why couldn't they just remain as they were? Why insist upon independence? There was some semblance of equality. Raman had achieved this, after all.