A Fine Family: A Novel (22 page)

It was the day of the Mehtas’ reception. Since morning, Arjun had been in a state of wild excitement. As he was combing his hair in the mirror, he was overcome with despair. He thought he was not good looking. He imagined there could be no happiness for one with such long ears, such a broad nose, thick lips, and brown eyes as his. He would have given anything for a handsome face so that he could appear attractive to Priti.

Karan came promptly at seven to collect them for the reception. He had informed the Mehtas that Bauji would also come. When Karan saw Tara, his eyes widened and he remarked that she looked beautiful. She felt flattered because she had gone to considerable trouble to put up her hair in a special bun, which was considered fashionable at the time. Arjun too was proud of his mother, and thought that she looked lovely in her Madras silk sari. So rarely did they go out that Arjun felt it strange to see his mother all dressed up. He was proud that her thick hair was still black, and the bun showed her long neck and her ears to advantage. She wore her sari in modern style, comfortably and not too tightly, with a nicely cut blouse, which focused on her attractive bosom and gave her a lean and youthful look.

Karan invited Bauji to ride in his rickshaw but Bauji refused. He was still upset with Karan. Thus father and daughter rode together and Arjun rode with Karan. As they rode to the Mehta house in the raw chill of the Simla autumn, Arjun tried to imagine the brilliance of the grand reception that awaited them—the brightly lit drawing rooms, the splendour of the clothes, the sumptuously laid food, the dignitaries and important people. Karan had said in an off-hand way that a Cabinet Minister and the Governor would be coming, as well as several members of the diplomatic corps who were visiting Simla. While Arjun was lost in the spectacle of his imagination, Tara was preoccupied in safeguarding her hair and her silk sari.

As they approached the Mehta house, they were impressed by the brilliant lights which blazed from the numerous windows of the mansion. A police guard stood at the brightly lit, carpeted entrance. As the rickshaws drove away, new ones took their place. From the rickshaws descended beautifully dressed women. Before Arjun realized what was happening, they were in the mirrored vestibule, taking off their coats, helped by a liveried servant. Arjun tried to assume a dignified manner appropriate to the occasion. He glanced into the mirrors, but he could not see himself clearly. He seemed to be a part of one glittering whole. As they reached the door leading to the main drawing room, a continuous sound of voices and glasses and the rustle of silk saris greeted them. Amrita was at the door, and she smiled at them. She greeted Bauji with special warmth.

‘Now
you
better introduce them to
all
my guests,’ she said to Karan. Turning to Tara, she added, ‘I can’t think of a better person, because he knows my guests better than even I do.’ She put her arm around Arjun’s shoulder. ‘Priti is somewhere about. I am sure she will be delighted to see you.’ Arjun felt a thrill both at the mention of Priti’s name and by her mother’s touch. He felt that great happiness awaited him that evening.

‘Karan, do you really know
all
these people?’ asked the wide-eyed Tara when they were well inside the room. Tara was greatly impressed, but Karan in his usual way dismissed her question and fell silent.

‘But at least tell us who some of them are?’ implored Tara, who was dying to meet people.

‘There, that is the British High Commissioner,’ said Karan, directing Tara’s attention to a tall pink man with silver grey, closely trimmed hair. He was surrounded by a group of ladies, all of whom he had just set laughing by some joke.

‘To his left is Sita, the princess of Chamba,’ said Karan.

‘Ah, she is beautiful’ said Tara.

‘She is also a delightful woman,’ said Karan. ‘She can say the exact opposite of what she is thinking. And she always speaks in such a simple and natural way that even the most careful and experienced people are taken in. Er. . . would you like to meet her? Let me go and bring her. She needs to be rescued from His Excellency’s jokes, I think.’

They watched with fascination as Karan confidently walked up to the British diplomat. He bowed to the Englishman, who smiled back. Karan quickly put his arm around the beautiful hill princess, and the diplomat winked at Karan as he saw the most attractive part of his audience being stolen from him.

‘Come, let us sit down here,’ said Chamba, after Karan had introduced her to Seva Ram’s family.

‘It’s been an unusually damp October, hasn’t it, especially after such a lovely summer. I really wonder whether it is worth staying on so late in Simla,’ she added as everyone sat down. Saying this the princess leaned over and exposed her ample bosom through her low-cut blouse. Paying no heed to people sitting across the room who were trying to catch her eye, she smiled and confidentially said to Tara, ‘I must get to know you and your handsome son. Amrita and Priti have told me about you.’

Tara blushed when she heard this and smiled back gratefully. Arjun beamed with pleasure at the praise from this grand lady, who had till then seemed completely inaccessible. As they began to talk, drinks and
hors d’ oeuvres
were brought in by a fat bearer, whose enormous paunch was covered by a blue cummerbund. The princess selected Scotch whisky, while Seva Ram’s family took fruit juices from the tray. Karan drank a glass of plain soda and avoided conversation. He stared unashamedly at Chamba’s exposed breasts, not with any desire or lust, but as if her anatomy were an aesthetic object.

Arjun’s eyes were roaming. Suddenly, he noticed Priti in a sari, leaning against the fireplace. She had her back to him, but he immediately recognized her by the mass of raven hair, and of course the imperious tilt of her head. As soon as he was aware of her, he became nervous. She turned her face around, as if she sensed that she was being watched. She looked at him squarely with her impetuous, dark eyes, and he blushed. She came across the room to greet him and his family. Immediately she recognized Bauji as her companion in the rail car, and she smiled at him.

‘Ah, here is our beautiful hostess,’ said the Princess of Chamba. ‘I can still remember her as a tiny, little girl? Even then she had those dark, alluring eyes under her bangs, and she used to squeal with a wild, merry laugh. But look at her now!’

Arjun looked at her in a daze. He stood there with his breath taken away, and could even feel the veins pulsing in his temples. She seemed to be excited. He wondered afterwards if it was due to her animated state that she looked so beautiful. Arjun tried to make a few clever remarks, but conversation did not flow easily, since he did not seem to have much to say. She pretended that she was interested in what he said. But Arjun could tell that she listened carelessly, and her eyes seemed to wander to others. He was nervously aware that he was not amusing her.

Bauji looked at Priti and then at his grandson with an affectionate irony which age accords to youth. He understood the situation immediately, and his heart went out to the young man. So this cruel beauty was the descendant of his old friend from Lahore! The grand house and the style of life it represented were a blow to his pride. Sanat Mehta had obviously done better by shrewdly scattering his investments, while he had been a fool to concentrate his property in and around Lyallpur. Whereas he had lost everything in the partition, the Mehtas had emerged unscathed. Now the granddaughter’s looks added to the wound. But the old war horse that he was, the call of feminine beauty found him ready to forget his pride, and he turned to Priti with a gracious tone. ‘How lucky for me to have had the pleasure of your lovely presence during the train journey, even though we did not speak. I hope we shall make up for it now.’

‘Thank you, Bauji. You are so kind. And how wonderful to know that you knew my grandfather. You know, I too said to myself on the train, “Who is that nice man?”’

To disguise his nervousness Arjun had resumed listening to the princess of Chamba without taking in a single word that the ample lady said. As Priti turned to talk to Tara, Bauji again began to regret the past. With Priti’s neck perilously close to his face, he consoled himself with the thought that he was fortunate at being old enough, to escape the suffering, which was the inevitable lot of a young man of Arjun’s age. Yet he was not so old that he could not envy the chances open to the young man who would possess this creature. The impulse of lust stung the civilized lawyer of sixty-five so sharply that it made him blush. Touched by his middle class scruples, he felt ashamed. To divert his mind, Bauji turned to look at the gathering.

‘How is my darling?’ boomed Rao Sahib, as he came around, and put his arm around Priti. He bowed civilly to the others. He was acquainted with Seva Ram’s family, but he did not wish to acknowledge it. He was a snob, and his interest in a person was in direct proportion to his social position. He turned towards Chamba, and said confidentially, ‘I say, Sita, do you know that Rekha Kapur has left the old man?’

‘Where has she gone, Bunty?’ asked Chamba.

‘Naughty, naughty! One doesn’t ask such questions, my dear. Don’t mention this to Colonel Kapur, I say.’ He paused to observe the reaction among his audience, and refilled his whisky from the bearer passing by.

‘And if the Colonel is not in his best third burra peg bum-bum-ho-ho mood, then. . . .’

‘Shame on you, Bunty, gossiping like this,’ interrupted Amrita. ‘Come help me. I think they have arrived,’ and she pulled Rao Sahib and Priti away. Chamba smiled, shook her head, and said to Karan, ‘He is the life of every Simla party, isn’t he?’

Karan looked distastefully at Rao Sahib’s back as it disappeared in the crowd, and he smiled ironically by compressing his lips in a peculiarly delicate way. ‘He is the son of a heaven-born ICS.’

And in that short phrase, Karan summed up the social structure of Simla, where one’s status was dependent on one’s father’s rank in the civil service, and on the official order of precedence. Neither wit nor wealth could help one break that iron barrier, which Indians had acquired intact from the English superimposing on it their own caste system.

‘Who was that horrid man, Tara?’ asked Bauji.

‘Shh. . .’ said Tara.

There was a general stir near the entrance and it became clear that the Governor and the Cabinet Minister had arrived. The people who had crowded near the entrance were pushed back by officious plain-clothes policemen. A whisper ran through the gathering. All eyes turned to the entrance, and the crowd divided into two rows, between which came the two important guests with their wives, pompously led by Rao Sahib and followed by Priti and her mother. Both the political figures bowed and smiled to the left and to the right. Several people in the crowd had anxious faces, as they wished to be recognized by the VIPs. The crowd quickly closed around the drawing-room door. The Cabinet Minister, who was the more distinguished of the two dignitaries, recognized the Chamba princess and Karan in the crowd, and immediately came forth to greet them. Arjun and Tara were both thrilled as they were introduced to the famous statesman, who looked handsome and powerful in an elegant silk kurta, an embroidered waistcoat and a Gandhi cap. He was alert and enthusiastic. His vivacity was infectious, and the conversation suddenly became very animated.

Priti chatted with Arjun, explaining who was who in the room. ‘That is Brigadier Thapar with his daughter Usha—isn’t she beautiful! They are stopping here briefly on their way to a reception in honour of a visiting General from Delhi. And the young and round lady sitting in the corner is from Mandi. She wears the best jewellery in Simla. Do you think she has a glow? That’s because she is expecting. She doesn’t attend big parties any longer, but only drops in at small, informal gatherings. Mother is flattered that she came today.’

Arjun’s eyes were fastened on Priti, and he neither heard nor saw anything that was happening at the party. He felt irrevocably drawn into this strange, grand world, which was so far removed from his everyday life. It was impossible for him to know what was right or wrong, what was reasonable or foolish. He stood beside Priti, oblivious of everything else. She returned his gaze with her brilliant eyes; he blushed, and she gave him a tender smile.

Bauji had wandered off to see if he knew anyone in the gathering. He was soon deep in conversation with a group of men, who he realized were refugees like himself, from the old Punjab. He was amazed at how well they had all done in life. Not only had they quickly rehabilitated themselves but they had actually prospered and were now better off than before. What accounted for their success, Bauji wondered? Hard work and inventiveness, certainly. But it was courage more than anything else, for they had despised death when life was more terrible than dying, and they had dared to live.

‘Do you know the curio shop on the lower Mall?’ Priti asked Arjun.

Arjun shook his head.

‘The one which displays prayer wheels from Tibet, turquoise necklaces, incense jars and a big bronze Buddha.’

Arjun nodded.

‘Well, it belongs to that mysterious man in the glasses. They say he is a Russian spy, but Mother thinks that he is the best astrologer in Simla. He can mesmerize you too.’

‘Mesmerize?’ asked Arjun.

‘Hypnotize you—put you in a trance—so that you don’t feel any pain or anything.’

Priti’s eyes wandered. Arjun watched her eyes as they closely followed Karan, who had just walked across the room. Every time Karan turned his head, people recognized him and gave him a smile. Everyone seemed to know him and to like him.

‘He is a great favourite!’ said Priti, guessing Arjun’s thoughts. Suddenly, she left him and skipped over to Karan.

Seeing Karan as the centre of attention, a peculiar sensation stirred in Arjun’s heart. As sometimes happens at significant moments in a boy’s life, it was a confused feeling. On the one hand he felt pride in Karan’s success and on the other envy, because he felt insignificant in comparison. One day perhaps he too could occupy such a favoured position, he hoped. But there was no getting away from the feeling that he was awkward and ungainly. He looked at his hands, and they were broad and dense compared to Karan’s, which were long, fine and aristocratic.