Apropos of nothing that had gone before, Mrs Mahesh Kapoor said, with a slightly embarrassed laugh: ‘I sometimes almost feel that Minister Sahib’s conversation of late has grown as incomprehensible as Dr Durrani’s.’
Everyone was surprised at such a remark, coming as it did from the mild-spirited Mrs Mahesh Kapoor. Veena in particular sensed that only great pressure and anxiety could have wrung such a statement from her. She reproached herself now; in her own anxieties about Bhaskar, she had been unconscious of what her mother must have been undergoing, worried as she must have been by Pran’s asthma and Bhaskar’s injury, quite apart from Maan’s behaviour and her husband’s increasing abruptness. She was not looking well herself, but this was probably the least of her worries.
Mrs Rupa Mehra’s mind, meanwhile, had swerved on to quite another track as a result of the last comment. ‘How did Dr Durrani get to hear of Bhaskar?’ she asked.
Veena, whose mind had been far away, said, ‘Dr Durrani?’ in a puzzled sort of voice.
‘Yes, yes, how did Bhaskar and Dr Durrani get together? This dutiful son of his, you say, recognized Bhaskar because of that connection.’
‘Oh,’ said Veena. ‘It began when Kedarnath invited Haresh Khanna to lunch. He’s a young man from Kanpur—’
Lata burst out laughing. Mrs Rupa Mehra’s face went first white, then pink. This was completely intolerable. Everyone in Brahmpur knew of this Haresh, and she had been the last to hear of it. Why had Haresh not mentioned Kedarnath or Bhaskar or Dr Durrani in his conversation? Why was she, Mrs Rupa Mehra, the last to be informed on a subject closer to her than to anyone else in this room: the acquisition of a son-in-law?
Veena and Mrs Mahesh Kapoor looked astonished by the reactions of both Lata and her mother.
‘How long has all this been going on?’ demanded Mrs Rupa Mehra with accusation and even resentment in her voice. ‘Why does everyone know about everything? Everyone knows this Haresh; everywhere I go it is Haresh, Haresh. And only I am left staring.’
‘But you left for Calcutta so soon after he was here that there wasn’t any chance to talk to you, Ma,’ said Veena. ‘Why is it so important?’
When it dawned on Veena and Mrs Mahesh Kapoor from the closeness of the interrogation to which they were being subjected that Haresh was considered to be a ‘prospect’, they pounced on Mrs Rupa Mehra with a volley of questions of their own, and upbraided her for keeping them in the dark.
Mrs Rupa Mehra, mollified, was soon as eager to divulge as to receive information. She had described Haresh’s certificates and qualifications and clothes and looks and had moved on to Lata’s reactions to Haresh and his to Lata, when, luckily for Lata’s peace of mind, she was interrupted by the arrival of Malati Trivedi.
‘Hello, hello,’ beamed Malati Trivedi, almost bouncing in. ‘I haven’t seen you for months, Lata. Namaste, Mrs Mehra — Ma, I mean. And to both of you.’ She nodded at Savita and the very visible bulge. ‘Hello, Veenaji, how is the music going? How is Ustad Sahib? I turned on the radio the other night and I heard him singing Raag Bageshri. It was so lovely: the lake, the hills, and the raag — all of them merged into one. I felt like dying with pleasure.’ With a final namaste to Mrs Mahesh Kapoor, whom she did not recognize, but whom she guessed to be Veena’s mother, Malati completed the circle, and sat down. ‘I’ve just come back from Nainital,’ she announced happily. ‘Where’s Pran?’
12.3
Lata looked at Malati as if she were a knight-errant. ‘Let’s go!’ she said to her. ‘Let’s go for a walk. At once! There are lots of things I want to talk about with you. I’ve been wanting to get out of the house all morning, but I’ve been too lazy to do so. And I thought of going to the women’s hostel but I didn’t know if you were back yet. We ourselves just got back last night.’
Malati obligingly got up again.
‘Malati has just come in,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘This is not very hospitable, Lata, or polite either. You must let her have some tea. Then you can go for your walk.’
‘That’s all right, Ma,’ said Malati, smiling. ‘I’m not really feeling like tea, and I’ll be thirsty when I return. I’ll have some then, and we’ll catch up on things. Meanwhile Lata and I’ll take a walk by the river.’
‘Do be careful, Malati, that path down by the banyan trees is very slippery in this weather,’ warned Mrs Rupa Mehra.
After going to her room to fetch a couple of things, Lata made good her escape.
‘Now what’s all this about?’ asked Malati as soon as they got out of the door. ‘Why did you want to leave?’
Lata lowered her voice for no very good reason.
‘They were discussing me and a man whom my mother made me meet in Kanpur just as if I wasn’t there, and even Savita didn’t object.’
‘I’m not sure I would have objected either,’ said Malati. ‘What were they saying?’
‘I’ll tell you later,’ said Lata. ‘I’ve had enough of myself for a while, and I want to hear something different. What’s your news?’
‘What sort of news do you want?’ asked Malati. ‘Intellectual, physical, political, spiritual, or romantic?’
Lata considered the last two, then thought of Malati’s comment about the lake, the hills, and a night raag. ‘Romantic,’ she said.
‘That’s a bad choice,’ said Malati. ‘You should get every idea of romance out of your head. But, well — I had a romantic encounter in Nainital. Except, well—’ She paused.
‘Except what?’ asked Lata.
‘Except, well, it wasn’t really. Anyway, I’ll tell you what happened and you decide for yourself.’
‘All right.’
‘You know my sister, my elder sister, the one who keeps kidnapping us?’
‘Yes — I haven’t met her, but the one who was married at fifteen to the young zamindar and lives near Bareilly.’
‘That’s right,’ said Malati. ‘Near Agra, actually. Anyway, they were having a holiday in Nainital, so I went along as well. And so did my three younger sisters and our cousins and so on. Everyone was given a rupee a day as pocket money, and this was quite enough to fill almost the whole day with one activity or another. I’d had a hard term, and I was eager to get Brahmpur out of my head. Like you, I suppose.’ She put her arm around Lata’s shoulder.
‘At any rate, I would ride in the morning — it’s only four annas an hour to hire a horse — and I’d also row, and skate at the rink — I’d sometimes skate twice a day and forget to go home for lunch. The rest of the family were involved in their own activities. Now I bet you can’t imagine what happened.’
‘You had a fall, and some young gallant at the rink rescued you,’ said Lata.
‘No,’ said Malati. ‘I look too self-assured for any Galahads to come chasing after me.’
Lata reflected that this was quite likely. Men did fall for her friend at a rapid rate, it was true, but they would probably fear to pick her up if she fell. Malati’s attitude towards most men was that they were beneath her attention.
Malati continued: ‘As it happens, I did have a fall or two while skating, but I got up on my own. No, what happened was quite different. I began to notice that a middle-aged man was following me around. Every morning when I was out rowing, I’d see him looking at me from the shore. Sometimes he’d get a boat out himself. He’d even appear at the rink.’