‘Speak up! Speak up! If your mother had mumbled like you, we would never have got married.’
Mahesh Kapoor had turned impatiently towards his dumpy little wife, who became even more tongue-tied as a result.
Pran turned and smiled encouragingly at his mother, and quickly rose again in Lata’s estimation.
Mahesh Kapoor frowned, but held his peace for a few minutes, after which he burst out, this time to the family priest:
‘Is this mumbo jumbo going to go on forever?’
The priest said something soothing in Sanskrit, as if blessing Mahesh Kapoor, who felt obliged to lapse into an irked silence. He was irritated for several reasons, one of which was the distinct and unwelcome sight of his arch political rival, the Home Minister, deep in conversation with the large and venerable Chief Minister S.S. Sharma. What could they be plotting? he thought. My stupid wife insisted on inviting Agarwal because our daughters are friends, even though she knew it would sour things for me. And now the Chief Minister is talking to him as if no one else exists. And in my garden!
His other major irritation was directed at Mrs Rupa Mehra. Mahesh Kapoor, once he had taken over the arrangements, had set his heart on inviting a beautiful and renowned singer of ghazals to perform at Prem Nivas, as was the tradition whenever anyone in his family got married. But Mrs Rupa Mehra, though she was not even paying for the wedding, had put her foot down. She could not have ‘that sort of person’ singing love-lyrics at the wedding of her daughter. ‘That sort of person’ meant both a Muslim and a courtesan.
Mahesh Kapoor muffed his responses, and the priest repeated them gently.
‘Yes, yes, go on, go on,’ said Mahesh Kapoor. He glowered at the fire.
But now Savita was being given away by her mother with a handful of rose petals, and all three women were in tears.
Really! thought Mahesh Kapoor. They’ll douse the flames. He looked in exasperation at the main culprit, whose sobs were the most obstreperous.
But Mrs Rupa Mehra was not even bothering to tuck her handkerchief back into her blouse. Her eyes were red and her nose and cheeks were flushed with weeping. She was thinking back to her own wedding. The scent of 4711 Eau de Cologne brought back unbearably happy memories of her late husband. Then she thought downwards one generation to her beloved Savita who would soon be walking around this fire with Pran to begin her own married life. May it be a longer one than mine, prayed Mrs Rupa Mehra. May she wear this very sari to her own daughter’s wedding.
She also thought upwards a generation to her father, and this brought on a fresh gush of tears. What the septuagenarian radiologist Dr Kishen Chand Seth had taken offence at, no one knew: probably something said or done by his friend Mahesh Kapoor, but quite possibly by his own daughter; no one could tell for sure. Apart from repudiating his duties as a host, he had chosen not even to attend his granddaughter’s wedding, and had gone furiously off to Delhi ‘for a conference of cardiologists’, as he claimed. He had taken with him the insufferable Parvati, his thirty-five-year-old second wife, who was ten years younger than Mrs Rupa Mehra herself.
It was also possible, though this did not cross his daughter’s mind, that Dr Kishen Chand Seth would have gone mad at the wedding had he attended it, and had in fact fled from that specific eventuality. Short and trim though he had always been, he was enormously fond of food; but owing to a digestive disorder combined with diabetes his diet was now confined to boiled eggs, weak tea, lemon squash, and arrowroot biscuits.
I don’t care who stares at me, I have plenty of reasons to cry, said Mrs Rupa Mehra to herself defiantly. I am so happy and heartbroken today. But her heartbreak lasted only a few minutes more. The groom and bride walked around the fire seven times, Savita keeping her head meekly down, her eyelashes wet with tears; and Pran and she were man and wife.
After a few concluding words by the priests, everyone rose. The newly-weds were escorted to a flower-shrouded bench near a sweet-smelling, rough-leafed harsingar tree in white-and-orange bloom; and congratulations fell on them and their parents and all the Mehras and Kapoors present as copiously as those delicate flowers fall to the ground at dawn.
Mrs Rupa Mehra’s joy was unconfined. She gobbled the congratulations down like forbidden gulab-jamuns. She looked a little speculatively at her younger daughter, who appeared to be laughing at her from a distance. Or was she laughing at her sister? Well, she would find out soon enough what the happy tears of matrimony were all about!
Pran’s much-shouted-at mother, subdued yet happy, after blessing her son and daughter-in-law, and failing to see her younger son Maan anywhere, had gone over to her daughter Veena. Veena embraced her; Mrs Mahesh Kapoor, temporarily overcome, said nothing, but sobbed and smiled simultaneously. The dreaded Home Minister and his daughter Priya joined them for a few minutes, and in return for their congratulations, Mrs Mahesh Kapoor had a few kind words to say to each of them. Priya, who was married and virtually immured by her in-laws in a house in the old, cramped part of Brahmpur, said, rather wistfully, that the garden looked beautiful. And it was true, thought Mrs Mahesh Kapoor with quiet pride: the garden was indeed looking beautiful. The grass was rich, the gardenias were creamy and fragrant, and a few chrysanthemums and roses were already in bloom. And though she could take no credit for the sudden, prolific blossoming of the harsingar tree, that was surely the grace of the gods whose prized and contested possession, in mythical times, it used to be.
1.6
Her lord and master the Minister of Revenue was meanwhile accepting congratulations from the Chief Minister of Purva Pradesh, Shri S.S. Sharma. Sharmaji was rather a hulking man with a perceptible limp and an unconscious and slight vibration of the head, which was exacerbated when, as now, he had had a long day. He ran the state with a mixture of guile, charisma and benevolence. Delhi was far away and rarely interested in his legislative and administrative fief. Though he was uncommunicative about his discussion with his Home Minister, he was nevertheless in good spirits.
Noticing the rowdy kids from Rudhia, he said in his slightly nasal voice to Mahesh Kapoor:
‘So you’re cultivating a rural constituency for the coming elections?’
Mahesh Kapoor smiled. Ever since 1937 he had stood from the same urban constituency in the heart of Old Brahmpur — a constituency that included much of Misri Mandi, the home of the shoe trade of the city. Despite his farm and his knowledge of rural affairs — he was the prime mover of a bill to abolish large and unproductive landholdings in the state — it was unimaginable that he would desert his electoral home and choose to contest from a rural constituency. By way of answer, he indicated his garments; the handsome black achkan he was wearing, the tight off-white pyjamas, and the brilliantly embroidered white jutis with their up-turned toes would present an incongruous picture in a rice field.
‘Why, nothing is impossible in politics,’ said Sharmaji slowly. ‘After your Zamindari Abolition Bill goes through, you will become a hero throughout the countryside. If you chose, you could become Chief Minister. Why not?’ said Sharmaji generously and warily. He looked around, and his eye fell on the Nawab Sahib of Baitar, who was stroking his beard and looking around perplexedly. ‘Of course, you might lose a friend or two in the process,’ he added.
Mahesh Kapoor, who had followed his glance without turning his head, said quietly: ‘There are zamindars and zamindars. Not all of them tie their friendship to their land. The Nawab Sahib knows that I am acting out of principle.’ He paused, and continued: ‘Some of my own relatives in Rudhia stand to lose their land.’