Savithri, for that was the daughter’s name, was the eldest. She was sent to England as soon as the war was over, with the Lord Sahib’s own recommendation. And so to be eventually married to a civil servant would be no real humiliation, even if the young man did not come from so good a family. After all to be in the Political Services was to belong to the most exclusive cadres of the Government of India: you were not quite an Englishman or a Maharaja, but about equidistant from both, and sometimes superior, because you played polo. You ruled Maharajas, who ruled Indians, and the British received you at the Club. Thus an Assistant Resident was still a highly respected party in the marriage market of north India. The British Governor’s presence, music and a few Maharajas, would do the trick in the end. And then Pandit Nehru could pat his bald pate as long as he liked. And hurrah for the Congress Raj!
The story is too long to relate. Sufficient that the girl did not agree. She came home on holiday and was shown him, and he her — and she suggested he marry Pushpavathi, her younger sister. It was nevertheless agreed that the engagement would be between Pratap and Savithri, for Savithri was still very young and she might yet change her mind. If in a few years she did not, Pushpavathi would certainly be ready to marry him. Pushpavathi did not care for her studies anyway, and she longed for a large family and a good mother-in-law. Pratap’s mother actually liked the second daughter, but the first was the girl Pratap chose, and on the auspicious star, with coconut and kunkum, Savithri was officially engaged to Pratap. There were drumbeats and a lot of music. The best dancing girls had come from Lucknow, Rampur, and Benares, and the Raja Sahib of Surajpur had special illumination arranged on the dome of the palace. Guns popped off announcing the fiançailles and some ten soldiers of the army, for that was what protocol permitted, marched in front of the palace. Horses and elephants were adorned; the temple of Amba Devi was lit with a thousand lights. Even the children at the local school were given sweets. Altogether it was a splendid occasion for all concerned.
When the family came back to their city home in Allahabad the girl refused to see Pratap. She said it was just her official engagement: nothing had been promised and nothing would ever take place. She had, besides, an aversion to British rule in India, and though Britain was giving up India, in Great Britain the mood had not changed. That Pratap had served the British so faithfully during the terrible war years was a point against him. There was no question of marriage. Months had passed since then, and there had been no letter from her. When she came back again from Cambridge she still said she would not see him. It was here that I was to come in and unweave the whole mystery. Why did she not want to see him? Why?
Living in Europe as I did, and having a French wife, seemed in their eyes to give me some special privilege in the understanding of love, which I did not, of course, possess. But when Pratap invited me over with him to the Raja Sahib’s house I, who hate all this decayed and false modernity of our small Rajas and Maharajas, went with some apprehension. That the whole set-up of Kumara Villa was in the bad taste I had anticipated did not surprise me. It is often difficult to be wrong about modern India. The crust is so superficial — it lies about everywhere but you can remove it, even with a babul thorn.
The Rani Saheba received us in one of those modern drawing rooms hung with huge oil portraits of British ex-Governors and sundry Maharajas. There were a few Ravi Varma lithographs on the walls, too, with paper flowers round them. There were three tiger skins, one of them almost a nine-footer that the Raja Sahib had killed in Kumaoan, and there were English-speaking servants. The tea-set was suburban, the English babu — English, and then came Savithri. There was nothing in her round, almost plump face and her thick spectacles to show but the most ordinary upper-middle-class Indian. Apart from France, and all that, the fact that I was a Brahmin by birth and a south Indian seemed to have given me a natural superiority. Though Pratap was at least four or five years my senior he fumbled at every step and looked up to me for explanation and support. It seemed that even if my father’s death had served for nothing else, it would serve to bring Pratap and Savithri together.
Savithri came with that sweep and nervousness of the modern girl and sat near me. She was fascinated with the idea that I was working on the Albigensians; she would herself have taken History, but her father had recommended English. So she was doing the English Tripos, and asked if I knew Cambridge. I told her I did not, but would take the earliest opportunity to go there when I was next in London. I also invited her to Aix- en-Provence, showed her a picture of Villa Ste-Anne and spoke feelingly of Madeleine. I never mentioned the child. And the only curious thing I remember about Savithri that day was — I said to myself: Here is a very clever person, but she never says anything that really matters. We had one thing in common: we both knew Sanskrit, and could entertain each other with Uttra Rama Charita or Raghuvamsa.
Her presence never said anything, but her absence spoke. Even when she went to speak on the telephone one felt she had a rich, natural grace, and one longed for her to be back. I felt I did not like her, she was too modern for me; she had already started smoking. If I remember right she was fixing up a dance engagement on the telephone. I could not understand these northerners going from strict purdah to this extreme modernism with unholy haste. We in the south were more sober, and very distant. We lived by tradition — shameful though it might look. We did not mind quoting Sankaracharya in Law Courts or marrying our girls in the old way, even if they had gone abroad. The elder brother still commanded respect, and my sisters would never speak to me as Savithri spoke to her father — the Raja Sahib had just come to say goodbye and he felt his future son-in-law and family were in good company.
When I went back home, what could I tell Little Mother? I told her I saw a strange family and dropped the subject there. We spoke of other and more urgent things. I told her about going to Hardwar and described to her the beauty of Dehra Dun and the foothills of the Himalayas, whence Mother Ganga surges out to purify mankind. You cannot have so much Sanskrit in your being and not feel,
‘Devi Sureshvari Bhagavathi Gange...’
Saviour of the three worlds of restless waves,
Clear is thy water circling upon the head of Shiva,
May my mind ever repose at Thy lotus-feet.
Venktaraman spoke of the past and of Father. He said how much my father had loved me, and how he had wept showing him some of my letters from Europe. I tried to be sincere and told him I had a great respect for Father, but that somehow since Mother’s death he could not inspire my love. Venktaraman knew some of my former sentences by heart and I could have wept for such brutality of language. Partly it was a defence of Madeleine; I think Madeleine hated my father because she wanted all of me. She loved India, for India was a cause to love. My father? Oh, no, why should one love him? She had a veneration for my mother, and hung her picture in my bedroom, my mother with her thick black hair and the central parting, and the big round kunkum on her forehead. It was already when the disease had eaten deep into her that the picture was taken. She was beautiful even so, and you almost felt that for her breathing’s sake at least her nose-pendant should be removed from her face. It seemed heavy, incongruous, and somehow very self-conscious.