Lata looked down at her book.
‘My poor dear Isabella,’ said he, fondly taking her hand, and interrupting, for a few moments, her busy labours for some one of her five children—‘How long it is, how terribly long since you were here! And how tired you must be after your journey! You must go to bed early, my dear — and I recommend a little gruel to you before you go. — You and I will have a nice basin of gruel together. My dear Emma, suppose we all have a little gruel.’
An egret flew over a field towards a ditch.
A sickly smell of molasses rose from a sugarcane factory.
The train stopped for an hour at a tiny station for no particular reason.
Beggars begged at the barred windows of the compartment.
When the train crossed the Ganga at Banaras, she threw a two-anna coin for luck out of the barred window. It hit a girder, then spun downwards into the river.
At Allahabad the train crossed over to the right bank again, and Lata threw another coin out.
Ganga darshan is so nice.
I have now completed twice.
She told herself that she was in danger of becoming an honorary Chatterji.
She began to hum Raag Sarang, then later drifted into Multani.
She rejected her sandwiches and bought some samosas and tea at the next station.
She hoped her mother was well. She yawned. She put Emma aside. She thought once again of Kabir.
She drowsed off for an hour. When she woke she found she had been leaning against the shoulder of an old woman in a white sari, who smiled at her. She had been keeping the flies off Lata’s face.
A troop of monkeys were raiding a dusty mango tree in an orchard at dusk, while three men stood below, trying to shoo them off with stones and lathis.
Soon it was night. It was still warm.
In a while the train slowed down once more, and the word ‘Cawnpore’ greeted her in black on a large yellow sign on the platform. Her mother was there, and her uncle Mr Kakkar, both smiling; but there was a look of strain on her mother’s face.
9.6
They went home by car. Kakkar Phupha (as Lata called her father’s sister’s husband) was a successful accountant with a cheery manner.
When they were alone, Mrs Rupa Mehra told Lata about Haresh: ‘a very suitable prospect’.
Lata was speechless for a moment. Then in a tone of disbelief she said: ‘You treat me like a child.’
Mrs Rupa Mehra wavered for a few seconds between suppression and placation, then murmured: ‘What is the harm, darling? I am not forcing anything on you. And day-after we will be leaving for Lucknow anyway and then back to Brahmpur the day after that.’
Lata looked at her mother, amazed that she should defend herself.
‘And it was for this — not because you were unwell or needed my help — that I was summoned from Calcutta.’ The tone of Lata’s voice was so unloving that Mrs Rupa Mehra’s nose reddened. But she pulled herself together and said:
‘Darling, I do need your help. Getting you married is not easy. And the boy is of our community.’
‘I don’t care what community he belongs to. I am not going to see him. I should never have left Calcutta.’
‘But he is a khatri — from U.P. originally,’ protested her mother.
This cast-iron argument had no effect on Lata. She said:
‘Ma, please. I know all your prejudices and I share none of them. You bring me up one way and you act in another.’
To this righteous attack her mother merely murmured: ‘You know, Lata, I have nothing against — against Mohammedans as such. It is only your future I am concerned about.’ Mrs Rupa Mehra had been expecting an outburst of sorts, and, with an effort, remained emollient.
Lata was silent. O, Kabir, Kabir, she thought.
‘Why aren’t you eating anything, dear? It’s been such a long journey.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Yes, you are,’ insisted Mrs Rupa Mehra.
‘Ma, you have brought me here under false pretences,’ said Lata, unpacking her suitcase and not looking at her mother. ‘You must have known that if you had given your reasons in the telegram I would never have come.’
‘Darling, it isn’t sensible to add words to a telegram. Telegrams have become terribly expensive these days. Unless of course you send a stock phrase like “Best wishes on a safe and pleasant journey” or “Heartiest Bijoya greetings” or some such thing. And he is such a nice boy. You’ll see.’
Lata was so exasperated that a couple of tears squeezed their way into her eyes. She shook her head, even angrier now with herself, her mother, and the unknown Haresh.
‘Ma, I hope I am not like you when I am your age,’ she said passionately.
Mrs Rupa Mehra’s nose immediately reddened again.
‘If you don’t believe me, at least believe Kalpana. I met him at her house. The boy is Kalpana’s friend. He has studied in England and has excellent results. He is good-looking, and he is interested in meeting you. If you are not interested in meeting him, how can I show my face to Kalpana who went through all the trouble of arranging this? Even Mr Gaur approves of him. If you don’t believe me, read this letter from her. It’s for you.’
‘I don’t need to read it,’ said Lata. ‘You can tell me what’s in it.’
‘How do you know I’ve read it?’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra indignantly. ‘Don’t you trust your own mother?’
Lata stood the empty suitcase in a corner. ‘Ma, there is guilt written all over your face,’ she said. ‘But I’ll read it all the same.’
Kalpana’s letter was brief and affectionate. Just as she had told Haresh that Lata was like a sister to her, she now told Lata that Haresh was like a brother to her. Kalpana, it seemed, had written to Haresh. Haresh had written back, saying that he couldn’t return to Delhi because he was required at the factory and had taken leave only recently, but that he would be very happy to meet Lata and Mrs Rupa Mehra in Kanpur. He had added that despite his affection for Simran, he had now come to realize that there was no hope for him there. As a result, he was not averse to meeting other girls. At the moment his life consisted of little but work; India was not England, where it was easy to get to know girls on their own.
As for a dowry [continued Kalpana in her curvaceously looped script], he isn’t the kind of man to ask for it, and there is no one to ask for it on his behalf. He is very attached to his father — his foster-father, actually, though he calls him Baoji — but (unlike his foster-brothers) he has established his independence early enough. He ran away from home once when he was fifteen, but you should not hold that against him. If the two of you like each other, you will not have to live with your in-laws. The joint family lives in Neel Darvaza in Delhi, and though I have been there once and like most of them, I know that that environment would not suit you, given the way you have been brought up.
I can tell you honestly, Lata, that I have always liked Haresh. At one time I even had a slight crush on him — we were in the same class at St Stephen’s. When my father read his recent letter, he said: ‘Well, it is a straightforward reply. At least he makes no bones about his earlier affections.’ And certainly, Ma seems set on him. She has been getting more and more worried lately. Perhaps this is the answer to her dreams as well as yours. At any rate, Lata, whatever you do or don’t do finally, do meet him, and don’t be annoyed with your mother, who has been going frantic trying to ensure your happiness (as she sees it).