A Fine Family: A Novel (5 page)

‘Bauji, can you blame him?’ said Karan. ‘Gandhi asks for so little: give us a promise of freedom after this war, and we shall help you in your war against fascism.’

‘But Churchill won’t even do that,’ added Tara, in support of Karan. She blushed again as she looked squarely at the handsome face of her cousin. There was no mistaking it, thought Bauji. He had an animal intuition of the current of desire flowing from his daughter to his nephew. He suddenly felt old and worried. He looked at the charming intruder, who went towards his daughter. He was relieved when he saw on Karan’s face only a grateful acknowledgement for her supportive remark.

‘Don’t you get mixed up in this stuff, boy!’ admonished Bhabo. The narrow, brown eyes smiled again as the nephew looked at his aunt with affectionate irony. He impulsively went up and grabbed Bhabo by the waist and gave her a hug. She too was dominated by his charm.

‘Stop this nonsense,’ she said laughingly. ‘And promise me.’

Karan did not say anything; everyone knew that he was heavily involved in the nationalist movement of Gandhi.

‘Bhabo, I am tired of always getting ready to live, but never living,’ he said.

‘You’ve got a big future before you, boy. Don’t lose it over this silly business,’ warned Bauji.

‘What makes you think I would do anything so patriotic? It’s certainly not part of the family tradition,’ said Karan with a mischievous smile.

‘Don’t you insult us, boy!’ said Bauji pretending to be angry.

‘What does one say to someone who insists on going to the DC’s party?’ said Karan.

‘One does not say anything.’

‘Will someone still go, even after Gandhiji’s resolution?’

‘All the more. Someone has to tell the English, after all.’ Bauji smiled.

‘Are you taking Bhabo with you?’ asked Karan.

Before he could answer, Bhabo interrupted, ‘Karan, he never takes me with him.’

‘Oh Bauji, take her with you!’ pleaded Tara.

‘The invitation clearly says “Mr & Mrs”,’ added Big Uncle.

‘Out of the question. She doesn’t know enough English and she will be quite lost,’ said Bauji.

‘See that, Karan. And he believes he is a modern sahib,’ said Bhabo.

‘What do you plan to wear to the party, Bauji?’ asked Karan.

‘Come and see for yourself.’

Although Bauji sometimes wore Western clothes, he used to say to Karan that when an Indian abandoned his own dress for the shirt and trouser of the West, he gave away a little bit of himself. He entered an unknown path, where he had few to guide him. The Englishman certainly did not accept an Indian more for that. On the contrary, the English had contempt for the Indian who was educated in Western learning. And Indians too were suspicious of their countrymen who gave up their traditional ways. Thus a Westernized Indian risked losing entry in his own world, without gaining admission into the Englishman’s. He had to be unusually brave and make his own rules, since the rules of the white man did not yet apply and the brown man’s rules had ceased to apply.

‘Bauji, must you go to the DC’s party?’ asked Karan.

‘Karan, the new DC is an inexperienced man, but he is sincere. He is trying. He is not a
pukka
sahib as yet. And before he gets that way, isn’t it worth our while to set him on the right way? There is no point in boycotting his party.’

‘But he is also a white skin and a ruler. Why should he listen to a brown skin of a subject race? Even the friendliest white cannot forget that. Deep down he scorns and despises us. This party is a gesture, a condescension. And Bauji, you want to go there and alleviate his guilty imperial conscience.’ Bauji reddened and Karan looked at his watch to hide his own embarrassment. ‘Oh, I must go, I’m late,’ he said after a pause.

‘Oh Karan, don’t go away so soon!’ said Tara. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Boy, you be careful,’ said Bhabo as Karan was leaving.

‘Won’t you at least stay for a cup of tea?’ implored Tara.

He turned around at the gate, smiled, picked up his bicycle which was leaning against the gate, and was gone.

‘See, you have driven him away,’ said Tara accusingly to Bauji. After a pause she asked, ‘Why doesn’t he come here like he used to?’

As usual the house was left in a daze after Karan’s departure. Bauji’s family had still not got used to his contradictory moods which oscillated between light-hearted bantering and sudden moments of extreme seriousness. Karan was the son of a spendthrift father who had married Bauji’s sister, squandered his whole fortune and then died. The family’s ruin had been total and included the linen Bauji had given his sister as part of the dowry. Since that day Bauji had taken on the responsibility of educating his nephew. And the boy had proved equal to his uncle’s hopes. The nephew had slowly become very dear to Bauji.

Karan was a success. And Bauji admired success. Karan had stood first in school and had an outstanding academic record in college; he had captained his college cricket team; and women wilted when he played the sitar. In comparison to his own son, Karan stood out like a dancing star. Bauji had resigned himself to Big Uncle’s mediocrity, and concentrated whole-heartedly on his nephew’s future. He had seen to it that Karan went to the best school and college in Lahore and did not suffer financially. After completing college, Karan was now preparing for the competitive examination to join the prestigious Indian Civil Service (ICS) which now admitted more and more Indians. No one doubted that Karan would get in. Recently, however, Bauji had become worried about a change in Karan’s life. He had heard rumours. Instead of playing cricket, or enchanting females with his sitar, Karan had been attending political meetings. At first Bauji dismissed it as healthy nationalist sentiment, but now he was concerned by the seriousness of his pursuit. He was also shocked by some of Karan’s views which he thought to be dangerously close to the Communists’. He had the boy followed for a few days, but he was relieved to learn that Karan had only gone to a meeting of the socialist wing of the Congress. Nevertheless, a nagging fear persisted because Bauji distrusted all political activity.

After Karan’s departure the family dispersed quickly, including the barber. Bauji was left alone with uneasy feelings. They were a strange mixture of hurt because of Karan’s abrupt departure, but also of envy for Karan’s youth and threatening sensuality, and distress at having been a witness to Tara’s blatant infatuation. He felt a fatherly urge to protect his daughter from inevitable pain, but he also felt remorse at succumbing to the voluptuous sensuality of the moment with unbecoming thoughts, which in the end had left him feeling disagreeable. He attributed the sensuality to the humid torpor in the air, magnified by the laziness of the morning. He was troubled by Karan’s restless nature. Karan was at an age when he was bored by the mundane and needed a cause. If his affectionate irony attracted him, his political activities offended. He was afraid that the ‘Quit India’ call given by Gandhi might pull his nephew into deeper waters, from which he could not be rescued.

Bauji did not look forward to the DC’s party. He was always embarrassed at the gatherings of the English and the Indians. The Indian guests invariably arrived too early because they did not want to be late, and thus put their hosts in an awkward position. Then they kept together in a group without speaking, and there were long uncomfortable silences. They tried to copy English dress, but no matter how hard they tried they never looked right but because they were uncomfortable. Even the lowliest Englishman at these gatherings put on superior airs while talking to the most distinguished Indian. Deep down, the educated Indian was a threat to the Englishman, not only because the latter was often less educated, but also because the Indian was filled with liberal and seditious ideas of equality and freedom.

Bauji blamed Englishwomen for having created these rigid barriers between the men of the two races because they were narrow-minded by and large. Also because they could not easily mix with Indian women, who were often in purdah and did not speak English, they prevented their men from socializing with Indian men. They made constant demands on their men to have social teas, to walk the dogs, to play mixed doubles at the club, and so on. He really found this influence on the men by the women very odd.

Nevertheless, he admired the English. Even though they did not mix with the Indians, they were honest and they were just. They worked hard to keep law and order and they tried their best to be fair. They tried to protect the weak from the strong and the honest from the dishonest. He could speak from personal experience in the courts about the lengths to which the lowest English judge would go to discover a fair solution.

So what if they did not extend a hand of friendship as well? So what if they wanted to be
burra
sahibs! He would rather have their justice than their friendship. They were after all the rulers. He would rather be slighted socially than have to live with injustice. Perhaps it was a virtue for the rulers and the ruled to keep apart.

Early in his career Bauji had learnt a lesson. An Englishman named Coates, who was the new City Magistrate, had befriended him and invited him to tea. He was a bachelor, new to the country, and not accustomed to the social barriers between the English and the Indians. Bauji was proud of the invitation, but made the mistake of telling his friends about it. Some of his friends, being full of envy, spread the news quickly, and it reached the Collector’s ears in a distorted form: that the Magistrate was taking bribes from the Pleader. As a result both Bauji and Coates got into trouble. But in the end a scandal was averted because the facts were otherwise. It taught them both a lesson, however. Curiously it also had the unintended effect of increasing Bauji’s practice. His new clients brought pockets full of cash in order to bribe the Magistrate. But Mr Coates, like most English officials, was an honest and a fair man.

Bauji suddenly got up and went inside to change. When he reached the top of the steps above the courtyard, he paused a moment. He could see the minarets of the mosque beyond the Clock Tower, and the dusky horizon which merged with the trees of the Company Bagh. He felt a weightless quality in the air and was overcome by a majestic calm produced by the brilliant dazzle of the noon sun. He thought that the rains came and the rains went but the sun reigned supreme in this land. As soon as he was inside, a servant came to help him with his clothes and shoes. As he put on a starched loose muslin kurta, depressing political thoughts overtook him.

‘Would the British really leave India?’ he asked himself, echoing Chachi’s concern. ‘And if they did, what would happen after they left?’ Especially after Karan’s visit, he felt discomfort at the thought that his own sentiments might not be very nationalistic. ‘Are we ready to govern ourselves?’ he wondered. As a legal man his views tended to be moderate and he believed in evolutionary change. All forms of direct action were unpleasant to him. Would Indians be able to maintain the magnificent British institutions of law and order? For the past hundred years, people had got used to the peace brought by the British Raj. And peace was one of those things that people only noticed when it was absent. Could the Indians hold it together? We have competent people, but they are forever fighting with one another: Hindu against Muslim; Jat against Bhangi, the landed against the landless. The spectre of India breaking up haunted Bauji. Would the subcontinent, left to its own devices, he wondered, degenerate into narrow parochialisms? Again he was assailed by the guilt that many Indian conservatives felt. He wanted the English to leave, but he wanted their institutions to stay. He wanted a gradual transfer of power.

The servant brought in his polished shoes and helped him put them on. Then he assisted him with his waistcoat. It was time to put on the turban, an important moment, so all political thoughts were suspended. He wore his turban in a particular fashion which he had acquired as a youth from a stylish judge whom he admired when he first set up his practice in Lyallpur. He made one, two and then three turns around his head with the starched white cloth. And it was done. The servant offered him a silk handkerchief and his gold watch. He glanced at the mirror as he was leaving and was pleased with what he saw, especially by the trim moustache. He felt that he looked like a man of substance, which reflected his own view of himself. He smiled at this thought and marched off briskly to his office rooms on the ground floor.

His chambers were normally airy and bright. The whitewashed walls shone as the brilliant sunshine streamed in through the open window, which the servant opened daily when he came to dust in the morning. In the summers, espedally before the monsoon, they became too bright; so a straw mat of khus-khus grass was thrown across the window which cut the glare; periodically, cold water poured over the mat kept the room cool. The white fan on the ceiling drculated the cool air.

To Bauji’s relief, his Munshi was not present, and so there wasn’t any bad news to start the day. The energetic Munshi delighted in showing him the ledgers first, and insisted on depressing him with a detailed account of all the debts which had not been paid. He never volunteered information on the other side—the income which had been received from numerous urban and rural properties.

On an impulse, he pushed aside the straw curtain and looked out of the window. The brightness hurt his eyes at first. As they got accustomed to it he felt the same luminous quiet in the air caused by the blazing midday sun.

He turned around, and for an instant luxuriated in the contrasting sensation produced by the cool and dark room. He walked over to his desk. Before sitting down, he gently felt the minute carving on the dark Burma teak chair. It had a woven cane bottom, which had been periodically restrung. He had got the chair twenty years ago when he had been a ‘promising young lawyer’, much talked about in the courts and in the club, because of two sensational murder cases that he had won in quick succession. The chair had been ordered from the fees of the first case. Every evening he had begun to visit the club to play tennis and bridge, and to talk. He used to enjoy being made much of, and felt he was one of the fortunate people alive.

While he was no longer a ‘promising young man’, he was aware of his considerable achievements and public successes. He continued to be highly respected in the town and in his profession. He felt that he was much freer from the vanity, animosity and envy of his younger days. His bodily and mental powers, though, were somewhat diminished. His instincts especially were not as sharp as they used to be. But he certainly was not lacking in manly drives—in lustful passion, in moral indignation, in ambition and assertive-ness. However, he suffered less and less from the tyranny of these drives. There were exceptions, of course, such as during Karan’s visit.

The first awareness of his loss in youthful vitality had been accompanied by a hurt to his narcissistic pride—especially when he compared himself to Karan. But that feeling was mostly behind him, although it could flare up on occasion when Karan came to visit. He had begun to deal with his age and his mortality. With the recognition of his own vulnerability had emerged a new empathy and compassion. The suffering of others had started to have a new meaning.

He sat down to read the daily papers that were meticulously folded on his desk. After three-quarters-of-an-hour his reading was interrupted by the smell of onions and garlic frying in the kitchen upstairs. Soon the aroma of a dozen spices joined in, and he knew that the cook was putting the finishing touches to the roasted aubergine that Bhabo had ordered last night. He felt hungry.

He liked to eat and feed his family well. That is why he personally selected fresh vegetables on the way back from his morning walk to the Company Bagh. Unfortunately, the cooking left much to be desired. Perhaps because there were too many in the house—at any time there were twenty to thirty mouths to feed, including servants, relatives and friends. Any visitor to Lyallpur from his village felt it his right to stopat his house for a meal before returning to the village. Sometimes he felt that Bhabo had extra food cooked in order to serve leftovers to the poor. He didn’t mind feeding the poor, but why must they eat the same food as the rest of the family?

To the earlier smells was now added the aroma of baked rotis, fresh out of the tandoor. And he knew lunch was ready. Fortunately, when it came to bread, there was no compromise because it was made by Bhua. Twenty years ago an impoverished widow from a ‘decent family’ in his village had arrived at his doorstep. He had given her shelter temporarily; but she had shown such skill in making rotis that she had stayed on. She had built a magnificent four-feet-tall tandoor out of baked clay. And she personally went to the bazaar to select the charcoal which was burned inside, and the whole wheat flour which she kneaded into dough. She began to address Bauji as ‘younger brother’ and she had become a member of the family.

He got up and walked towards the dining room. At Big Uncle’s insistence a few years ago, they had converted one of the east rooms into a dining room, but he hadn’t liked the idea. The food always got cold by the time it reached them from the kitchen. It was a new fashionable idea amongst their class, which they had learned from the English. Since most of Big Uncle’s college friends ate in a dining room, they too had to eat in one. He much preferred eating in or near the kitchen. In the winters, they still ate in the kitchen, where it was nice and warm.

About twenty famished people were already assembled eagerly waiting for their brass thalis to be filled with food when he reached the dining room. Apart from the immediate family, there were nephews, grandsons, aunts, friends of nephews, friends of friends, and a few others whose faces he did not recognize. But he hoped
someone
did. It became quiet as soon as he entered. The older people from the village had not joined in, as they felt uncomfortable sitting at a table; they ate near the kitchen on a straw mat. The meal started quietly and proceeded uneventfully. Just as he was about to remark on the delicate quality of the lentils, Bhabo suddenly burst out, ‘I am getting tired of your clients knocking down the door in the middle of the night when all godly people are fast asleep. The night before last we had a dozen from Akalgarh. We had to cook for them at midnight and prepare their beds. Is this some kind of inn? And would you believe it, one of them even complained about the salt in the food!’