Amit, terrified that he might have to face more of this, said hastily: ‘Alas, Your Excellency will forgive me, but I have a pressing engagement in fifteen minutes, no, forgive me, five minutes now, with an old colleague of my father’s.’
‘Tomorrow then?’ asked Anna-Maria.
‘No, alas, I am going to Palashnagar tomorrow,’ said Amit, naming the fictitious town in which his novel was set. He reflected that this was no more than the truth.
‘A pity, a pity,’ said Bernardo Lopez. ‘But we still have five minutes, so let me ask simply this, a long puzzlement to me: What is all this about “being” and birds and boats and the river of life — that we find in Indian poetry, the great Tagore unexcluded? But let me say in qualification that by “we” I mean merely we of the West, if the South may be subsumed in the West, and by “find” I mean that which is as if to say that Columbus found America which we know needed no finding, for there were those there for whom “finding” would be more insulting than superfluous, and of course by Indian poetry, I mean such poetry as has been made accessible to us, which is to say, such as has been traduced by translation. In that light, can you enlighten me? Us?’
‘I will try,’ said Amit.
‘You see?’ said Bernardo Lopez with mild triumph to Anna-Maria, who had put down her notebook. ‘The unanswerables are not unanswerable in the lands of the East. Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, and when it is true of a whole nation, it makes one marvel the more. Truly when I came here one year ago I had a sense—’
But Bahadur now entered, and informed Amit that Biswas Babu was waiting for him in his father’s study.
‘Forgive me, Your Excellency,’ said Amit, getting up, ‘it appears as though my father’s colleague has arrived. But I shall give earnest thought to what you have said. And I am deeply honoured and grateful.’
‘And I, young man, though young here is merely to say that the earth has gone around the sun less often since your inception, er, conception, than mine (and is that to say anything at all?), I too will bear in mind the result of this confabulation, and consider it “in vacant or in pensive mood”, as the Poet of the Lake has chosen to express it. Its intensity, the urgings I have felt during this brief interview, which have led me upwards from nescience to science — yet is that in truth an upward movement? Will time even tell us that? Does time tell us anything at all? — such I will cherish.’
‘Yes, we are indebted,’ said Anna-Maria, picking up her notebook.
As the great black car spirited them away, no longer running behind time, Amit stood on the porch step waving slowly.
Though the fluffy white cat Pillow, led on a leash by his grandfather’s servant, crossed his field of vision, Amit did not follow it with his eyes, as he normally did.
He had a headache, and was in no mood to talk to anyone. But Biswas Babu had come specially to see him, probably to make him see sense and take up the law again, and Amit felt that his father’s old clerk, whom everyone treated with great affection and respect, should not be required to sit and cool his heels longer than necessary — or rather, shake his knees, which was a habit with him.
7.18
What made matters slightly uncomfortable was that though Amit’s Bengali was fine and Biswas Babu’s spoken English was not, he had insisted — ever since Amit had returned from England ‘laden with laurels’ as he put it — on speaking to him almost exclusively in English. For the others, this privilege was only occasional; Amit had always been Biswas Babu’s favourite, and he deserved a special effort.
Though it was summer, Biswas Babu was dressed in a coat and dhoti. He had an umbrella with him and a black bag. Bahadur had given him a cup of tea, which he was stirring thoughtfully while looking around at the room in which he had worked for so many years — both for Amit’s father and for his grandfather. When Amit entered, he stood up.
After respectful greetings to Biswas Babu, Amit sat down at his father’s large mahogany desk. Biswas Babu was sitting on the other side of it. After the usual questions about how everyone was doing and whether either could perform any service for the other, the conversation petered out.
Biswas Babu then helped himself to a small amount of snuff. He placed a bit in each nostril and sniffed. There was clearly something weighing on his mind but he was reluctant to bring it up.
‘Now, Biswas Babu, I have an idea of what has brought you here,’ said Amit.
‘You have?’ said Biswas Babu, startled, and looking rather guilty.
‘But I have to tell you that I don’t think that even your advocacy is going to work.’
‘No?’ said Biswas Babu, leaning forward. His knees started vibrating rapidly in and out.
‘You see, Biswas Babu, I know you feel I have let the family down.’
‘Yes?’ said Biswas Babu.
‘You see, my grandfather went in for it, and my father, but I haven’t. And you probably think it is very peculiar. I know you are disappointed in me.’
‘It is not peculiar, it is just late. But you are probably making hail while the sun shines, and sowing oats. That is why I have come.’
‘Sowing oats?’ Amit was puzzled.
‘But Meenakshi has rolled the ball, now you must follow it.’
It suddenly struck Amit that Biswas Babu was talking not about the law but about marriage. He began to laugh.
‘So it is about this, Biswas Babu, that you have come to talk to me?’ he said. ‘And you are speaking to me about the matter, not to my father.’
‘I also spoke to your father. But that was one year ago, and where is the progress?’
Amit, despite his headache, was smiling.
Biswas Babu was not offended. He told Amit:
‘Man without life companion is either god or beast. Now you can decide where to place yourself. Unless you are above such thoughts. . ’
Amit confessed that he wasn’t.
Very few were, said Biswas Babu. Perhaps only people like Dipankar, with his spiritual leanings, were able to renounce such yearnings. That made it all the more imperative that Amit should continue the family line.
‘Don’t believe it, Biswas Babu,’ said Amit. ‘It is all Scotch and sannyaas with Dipankar.’
But Biswas Babu was not to be distracted from his purpose. ‘I was thinking about you three days ago,’ he said. ‘You are so old — twenty-nine or more — and are still issueless. How can you give joy to your parents? You owe to them. Even Mrs Biswas agrees. They are so proud of your achievement.’
‘But Meenakshi has given them Aparna.’
Obviously a non-Chatterji like Aparna, and a girl at that, did not count for much in Biswas Babu’s eyes. He shook his head and pursed his lips in disagreement.
‘In my heart-deep opinion—’ he began, and stopped, so that Amit could encourage him to continue.
‘What do you advise me to do, Biswas Babu?’ asked Amit obligingly. ‘When my parents were keen that I should meet that girl Shormishtha, you made your objections known to my father, and he passed them on to me.’
‘Sorry to say, she had tinted reputation,’ said Biswas Babu, frowning at the corner of the desk. This conversation was proving more difficult than he had imagined it would. ‘I did not want trouble for you. Inquiries were necessary.’
‘And so you made them.’
‘Yes, Amit Babu. Now maybe about law you know best. But I know about early life and youth. It is hard to restrain, and then there is danger.’