A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth Read Free Book Online Page A

work : he had been attached to the army for a while and had gone to Afghanistan ; he had taught in Lucknow at the medical college; he had also been in private practice. At the time of his death, although he had not been very good at saving money, he had owned a fair amount of property - largely in the form of houses. Every five years or so he would uproot himself and move to another town in U.P. Meerut, Bareilly, Lucknow, Agra. Wherever he lived he built a new house, but without disposing of the old ones. When he died, Malati's mother went into what seemed like an irreversible depression, and remained in that state for two years.
     
     
Then she pulled herself together. She had a large family to take care of, and it was essential that she think of things in a practical way. She was a very simple, idealistic, upright woman, and she was concerned more with what was right than with what was convenient or approved of or monetarily beneficial. It was in that light that she was determined to bring up her family.
     
     
And what a family! - almost all girls. The eldest was a proper tomboy, sixteen years old when her father died, and already married to a rural landlord's son; she lived about twenty miles away from Agra in a huge house with twenty servants, lichi orchards, and endless fields, but even after her marriage she joined her sisters in Agra for months at a time. This daughter had been followed by two sons, but they had both died in childhood, one aged five, the other three. The boys had been followed by Malati herself,
     
     
37who was eight years younger than her sister. She also grew up as a sort of boy - though not by any means like the tomboy her sister was - for a variety of reasons conrifectec ' with her infancy: the direct gaze in her unusual eyes, her boyish look, the fact that the boys' clothes were at handl the sadness that her parents had experienced at the deatJil of their two sons. After Malati came three girls, one after | another; then another boy; and then her father died. I
     
     
Malati had therefore been brought up almost entirely v among women ; even her little brother had been like a little sister; he had been too young to be treated as anything different. (After a while, perhaps out of perplexity, he had gone the way of his brothers.) The girls grew up in an atmosphere where men came to be seen as exploitative and threatening; many of the men Malati came into contact j with were precisely that. No one could touch the memory j of her father. Malati was determined to become a doctor I like him, and never allowed his instruments to rust. She I intended one day to use them. I
     
     
Who were these men ? One was the cousin who did them out of many of the things that her father had collected and used, but which were lying in storage after his death. Malati's mother had cleared out what she had seen as inessentials from their life. It was not necessary now to have two kitchens, one European and one Indian. The china and fine cutlery for western food was put away, together with a great deal of furniture, in a garage. The cousin came, got the keys from the grieving widow, told her he would manage matters, and cleaned out whatever had been stored. Malati's mother never saw a rupee of the proceeds. 'Well,' she had said philosophically, 'at least my sins have lessened.'
     
     
Another was the servant who acted as an intermediary for the sale of the houses. He would contact property agents or other prospective buyers in the towns where the houses were located, and make deals with them. He had something of a reputation as a cheat.
     
     
Yet another was her father's younger brother, who still lived in the Lucknow house, with his wife downstairs and
     
     
38a dancing girl upstairs. He would happily have cheated them, if he had been able to, over the sale of that house. He needed money to spend on the dancing girl.
     
     
Then there was the young - well, twenty-six-year-old but rather sleazy college teacher