of the early editions of Ghalib can't be traced now; an|
some valuable manuscripts by our own poet Mast. M.
brother never made a list of what he took with him*%
Pakistan ' j
At the word Pakistan, Veena's mother-in-law, withered old Mrs Tandon, flinched. Three years ago, her wholi family had had to flee the blood and flames and unforgettable terror of Lahore. They had been wealthy, 'propertied people, but almost everything they had owned was lost and they had been lucky to escape with their lives. Her son Kedarnath, Veena's husband, still had scars on his hands from an attack by rioters on his refugee convoy. Several of their friends had been butchered. .
The young, old Mrs Tandon thought bitterly, are veryj resilient: her grandchild Bhaskar had of course only been! six at the time; but even Veena and Kedarnath had not let* those events embitter their lives. They had returned here to Veena's hometown, and Kedarnath had set himself up in a small way in - of all polluting, carcass-tainted things - the shoe trade. For old Mrs Tandon, the descent from a decent | prosperity could not have been more painful. She had been f willing to tolerate talking to the Nawab Sahib though he | was a Muslim, but when he mentioned comings and goings from Pakistan, it was too much for her imagination. She felt ill. The pleasant chatter of the garden in Brahmpur was amplified into the cries of the blood-mad mobs on the streets of Lahore, the lights into fire. Daily, sometimes hourly, in her imagination she returned to what she still thought of as her city and her home. It had been beautiful before it had become so suddenly hideous ; it had appeared completely secure so shortly before it was lost for ever.
The Nawab Sahib did not notice that anything was the matter, but Veena did, and quickly changed the subject
I
even at the cost of appearing rude. 'Where's Bhaskar ?' she asked her husband.
'I don't know. I think I saw him near the food, the little frog,' said Kedarnath.
'I wish you wouldn't call him that,' said Veena. 'He is your son. It's not auspicious '
'It's not my name for him, it's Maan's,' said Kedarnath with a smile. He enjoyed being mildly henpecked. 'But I'll call him whatever you want me to.'
Veena led her mother-in-law away. And to distract the old lady she did in fact get involved in looking for her son. Finally they found Bhaskar. He was not eating anything but simply standing under the great multicoloured cloth canopy that covered the food tables, gazing upwards with pleased and abstract wonderment at the elaborate geometrical patterns - red rhombuses, green trapeziums, yellow squares and blue triangles - from which it had been stitched together.
1.9
THE crowds had thinned; the guests, some chewing paan, were departing at the gate; a heap of gifts had grown by the side of the bench where Pran and Savita had been sitting. Finally only they and a few members of the family were left - and the yawning servants who would put away the more valuable furniture for the night, or pack the gifts in a trunk under the watchful eye of Mrs Rupa Mehra.
The bride and groom were lost in their thoughts. They avoided looking at each other now. They would spend the night in a carefully prepared room in Prem Nivas, and leave for a week's honeymoon in Simla tomorrow.
Lata tried to imagine the nuptial room. Presumably it would be fragrant with tuberoses; that, at least, was Malati's confident opinion. I'll always associate tuberoses with Pran, Lata thought. It was not at all pleasant to follow her imagination further. That Savita would be sleeping with Pran tonight did not bear thinking of. It did!
not strike her as being at all romande. Perhaps they woul/ be too exhausted, she thought optimistically. 'What are you thinking of, Lata ?' asked her motlter; i
'Oh, nothing, Ma, ' said Lata automatically. * f
'You turned up your nose. I saw it.' Lata blushed.
'I don't think I ever want to get married,' she sai( emphatically.
Mrs Rupa Mehra was too wearied by the wedding, -to* ;t
exhausted by emotion, too softened by Sanskrit, too cum
bered with congratulations, too overwrought, in short, to
do anything but stare at Lata for ten seconds. What on
earth had got into the girl ? What was good enough for her
mother and her mother's mother and her mother's mother's;
mother should be good enough for her. Lata, though, had*
always been a difficult one, with a strange will of her own!
quiet but unpredictable - like that time in St Sophia's!
when she had wanted to become a nun! But Mrs Rupaf
Mehra too had a will, and she was determined to have her|
own way, even if she was under no illusions as to Lata's j
pliability. I
And yet, Lata was named after that most pliable thing, a I vine, which was trained to cling : first to her family, then f to her husband. Indeed, when she was a baby, Lata's \ fingers had had a strong and coiling grasp which even now f came back with a sweet vividness to her mother. Suddenly Mrs Rupa Mehra burst out with the inspired remark :
'Lata, you are a vine, you must cling to your husband !'
It was not a success.
'Cling?' said Lata. 'Cling?' The word was pronounced with such quiet scorn that her mother could not help bursting into tears. How terrible it was to have an ungrateful daughter. And how unpredictable a baby could be.
Now that the tears were running down her cheeks, Mrs Rupa Mehra transferred them fluidly from one daughter to the other. She clasped Savita to her bosom and wept loudly. 'You must write to me, Savita darling,' she said. 'You must write to me every day from Simla. Pran, you are
P
30
like my own son now, you must be responsible and see to it. Soon I will be all alone in Calcutta - all alone.'
This was of course quite untrue. Arun and Varun and Meenakshi and Aparna would all be crowded together with her in Arun's little flat in Sunny Park. But Mrs Rupa Mehra was one who believed with unformulated but absolute conviction in the paramountcy of subjective over objective truth.
1.10
THE tonga clip-clopped along the road, and the tongawallah sang out :
'A heart was shattered into bits - and one fell here, and one fell there '
Varun started to hum along, then sang louder, then suddenly stopped.
'Oh, don't stop,' said Malati, nudging Lata gently. 'You have a nice voice. Like a bulbul.'
'In a china-china-shop,' she whispered to Lata.
'Heh, heh, heh.' Varun's laugh was nervous. Realizing that it sounded weak, he tried to make it slightly sinister. But it didn't work. He felt miserable. And Malati, with her green eyes and sarcasm - for it had to be sarcasm - wasn't helping.
The tonga was quite crowded: Varun was sitting with young Bhaskar in the front, next to the tonga-wallah; and back-to-back with them sat Lata and Malati - both dressed in salwaar-kameez - and Aparna in her ice-creamstained sweater and a frock. It was a sunny winter morning.
The white-turbaned old tonga-wallah enjoyed driving furiously through this part of town with its broad, relatively uncrowded streets - unlike the cramped madness of Old Brahmpur. He started talking to his horse, urging her on.
Malati now began to sing the words of the popular film song herself. She hadn't meant to discourage Varun. It waspleasant to think of shattered hearts on a cloudlesj
morning. j
Varun didn't join in. But after a while he took h|me id
his hands and said, turning around : I
'You have a - a wonderful voice. ' I
It was true. Malati loved music, and studied classical
singing under Ustad Majeed Khan, one of the finest singeri
in north India. She had even got Lata interested in Indian!
classical music during the time they had lived togetherm
the student hostel. As a result, Lata often found hersel»
humming some tune or other in one of her favourite raags. I
Malati did not disclaim Varun's compliment. •
'Do you think so?' she said, turning around to look»
deeply into his eyes. 'You are very sweet to say so.' I
Varun blushed to the depths of his soul and was speech-1
less for a few minutes. But as they passed the Brahmpur»
Race-course, he gripped the tonga-wallah's arm and cried: I
'Stop F •
'What's the matter ?' asked Lata. B
'Oh - nothing - nothing - if we're in a hurry, Jet's go •
on. Yes, let's go on.' •
'Of course we're not, Varun Bhai,' she said. 'We're only I going to the zoo. Let's stop if you want.' •
After they had got down, Varun, almost uncontrollably I excited, wandered to the white palings and stared through. I 'It's the only anti-clockwise race-course in India other F than Lucknow,' he breathed, almost to himself, awestruck. 'They say it's based on the Derby,' he added to
young Bhaskar, who happened to be standing next to him.
'But what's the difference?' asked Bhaskar. 'The distance is the same, isn't it, whether you run clockwise or anticlockwise ?'
Varun paid no attention to Bhaskar's question. He had started walking slowly, dreamily, by himself, anti-clockwise along the fence. He was almost pawing the earth. Lata caught up with him : 'Varun Bhai ?' she said.
'Er - yes ? Yes ?'
'About yesterday evening.'
\
'Yesterday evening ?' Varun dragged himself back to the two-legged world. 'What happened ?'
'Our sister got married.'
'Ah. Oh. Yes, yes, I know. Savita,' he added, hoping to imply alertness by specificity.
'Well,' said Lata, 'don't let yourself be bullied by Arun Bhai. Just don't.' She stopped smiling, and looked at him as a shadow crossed his face. 'I really hate it, Varun Bhai, I really hate seeing him bully you. I don't mean that you should cheek him or answer back or anything, just that you shouldn't let it hurt you the way that - well, that I can see it does.'
'No, no -' he said, uncertainly.
'Just because he's a few years older doesn't make him your father and teacher and sergeant-major all rolled into one.'
Varun nodded unhappily. He was too well aware that while he lived in his elder brother's house he was subject to his elder brother's will.
'Anyway, I think you should be more confident,' continued Lata. 'Arun Bhai tries to crush everyone around him like a steamroller, and it's up to us to remove our egos from his path. I have a hard enough time, and I'm not even in Calcutta. I just thought I'd say so now, because at the house I'll hardly get the chance to talk to you alone. And tomorrow you'll be gone.'
Lata spoke from experience, as Varun well knew. Arun, when angry, hardly cared what he said. When Lata had taken it into her head to become a nun - a foolish, adolescent notion, but her own - Arun, exasperated with the lack of success of his bludgeoning attempts at dissuasion, had said: 'All right, go ahead, become a nun, ruin your life, no one would have married you anyway, you look just like the Bible - flat in front and flat at the back.' Lata thanked God that she wasn't studying at Calcutta University; for most of the year at least, she was outside the range of Arun's blunderbuss. Even though those words were no longer true, the memory of them still stung.
'I wish you were in Calcutta,' said Varun.'Surely you must have some friends -' said Lata. 'Well, in the evening Arun Bhai and Meenakshi Bhabhi are often out and I have to mind Aparna,' said f arun, smih'ng weakly. 'Not that I mind,' he added.
'Varun, this won't do,' said Lata. She placed her hand
firmly on his slouching shoulder and said: 'I want you tof
go out with your friends - with people you really like and:
who like you - for at least two evenings a week. Pretend'
you have to attend a coaching session or something.' Lata*
didn't care for deception, and she didn't know whether1
Varun would be any good at it, but she didn't want things ;
to continue as they were. She was worried about Varun, \
He had looked even more jittery at the wedding than when
she had seen him a few months previously. j
A train hooted suddenly from alarmingly close, and the tonga horse shied. \
'How amazing,' said Varun to himself, all thoughts of J
everything else obliterated. i
