A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth Read Free Book Online

house. Both children were eager to see the snake pit, which was full of fairly sluggish pythons, and the glass cases with their deadly vipers and kraits and cobras. And also, of course, the cold, corrugated crocodiles onto whose backs some schoolchildren and visiting villagers were throwing coins while others, as the white, serrated mouths opened lazily far below, leaned over the railings and pointed and squealed and shuddered. Luckily Varun had a taste for the sinister, and took the kids inside. Lata and Malati refused to go in.
     
     
'I see enough horrifying things as a medical student,' said Malati.
     
     
'I wish you wouldn't tease Varun,' said Lata after a while.
     
     
'Oh, I wasn't teasing him,' said Malati. 'Just listening to him attentively. It's good for him.' She laughed.
     
     
'Mm - you make him nervous.'
     
     
'You're very protective of your elder brother.'
     
     
'He's not - oh, I see - yes, my younger elder brother.
     
     
35Well, since I don't have a younger brother, I suppose I've
     
     
given him the part. But seriously, Malati, I am worried
     
     
about him. And so is my mother. We don't know what
     
     
he's going to do when he graduates in a few months. He
     
     
hasn't shown much aptitude for anything. And Arun bullies
     
     
him fearfully. I wish some nice girl would take him in
     
     
charge. '
     
     
'And I'm not the one ? I must say, he has a certain feeble
     
     
charm. Heh, hehF Malati imitated Varun's laugh. •;
     
     
'Don't be facetious, Malati. I don't know about Varun, I
     
     
but my mother would have a fit,' said Lata. '•
     
     
This was certainly true. Even though it was an impossible j
     
     
proposition geographically, the very thought of it would
     
     
have given Mrs Rupa Mehra nightmares. Malati Trivedi,
     
     
apart from being one of a small handful of girls among the t
     
     
almost five hundred boys at the Prince of Wales Medical I
     
     
College, was notorious for her outspoken views, her partici- |
     
     
pation in the activities of the Socialist Party, and her love [
     
     
affairs - though not with any of those five hundred boys, I
     
     
whom, by and large, she treated with contempt. I
     
     
'Your mother likes me, I can tell,' said Malati. I
     
     
'That's beside the point,' said Lata. 'And actually, I'm L
     
     
quite amazed that she does. She usually judges things by J
     
     
influences. I would have thought you're a bad influence on 1
     
     
me.' I
     
     
But this was not entirely true, even from Mrs Rupa I
     
     
Mehra's viewpoint. Malati had certainly given Lata more 1
     
     
confidence than she had had when she had emerged wet- 1
     
     
feathered from St Sophia's. And Malati had succeeded in I
     
     
getting Lata to enjoy Indian classical music, which (unlike I
     
     
ghazals) Mrs Rupa Mehra approved of. That they should I
     
     
have become room-mates at all was because the govern- I
     
     
ment medical college (usually referred to by its royal title) I
     
     
had no provision for housing its small contingent of women 1
     
     
and had persuaded the university to accommodate them in I
     
     
its hostels. JL
     
     
Malati was charming, dressed conservatively but attrac- V
     
     
tively, and could talk to Mrs Rupa Mehra about everything T
     

 
from religious fasts to cooking to genealogy, matters that I
     
     
36
     
     
Iher own westernized children showed very little interest in. She was also fair, an enormous plus in Mrs Rupa Mehra's subconscious calculus. Mrs Rupa Mehra was convinced that Malati Trivedi, with her dangerously attractive greenish eyes, must have Kashmiri or Sindhi blood in her. So far, however, she had not discovered any.
     
     
Though they did not often talk about it, the bond of paternal loss also tied Lata and Malati together.
     
     
Malati had lost her adored father, a surgeon from Agra, when she was eight. He had been a successful and handsome man with a wide acquaintance and a varied history of