A Suitable Boy Read Online Free PDF Page B

rose-petals. Talking of which, you have one sticking to your cap.'
     
     
'Do I ?' asked Maan. 'These things float down from nowhere.'
     
     
'So they do,' said Firoz, who v/as walking down just behind him. He gently brushed it away.
     
     
1.8
     
     
BECAUSE the Nawab Sahib had been looking somewhat lost without his sons, Mahesh Kapoor's daughter Veena had drawn him into her family circle. She asked him about his eldest child, his daughter Zainab, who was a childhood friend of hers but who, after her marriage, had disappeared into the world of purdah. The old man talked about her rather guardedly, but about her two children with transparent delight. His grandchildren were the only two beings in the world who had the right to interrupt him when heI
     
     
was studying in his library. But now the great yellcr,
     
     
ancestral mansion of Baitar House, just a few minuta
     
     
walk from Prem Ni vas, was somewhat run dowrfclind tli
     
     
library too had suffered. 'Silverfish, you know,' “said tlj
     
     
Nawab Sahib. 'And I need help with cataloguing. It's f
     
     
gigantic task, and in some ways not very heartening. Son|
     
     
of the early editions of Ghalib can't be traced now; an|
     
     
some valuable manuscripts by our own poet Mast. M.
     
     
brother never made a list of what he took with him*%
     
     
Pakistan ' j
     
     
At the word Pakistan, Veena's mother-in-law, withered old Mrs Tandon, flinched. Three years ago, her wholi family had had to flee the blood and flames and unforgettable terror of Lahore. They had been wealthy, 'propertied people, but almost everything they had owned was lost and they had been lucky to escape with their lives. Her son Kedarnath, Veena's husband, still had scars on his hands from an attack by rioters on his refugee convoy. Several of their friends had been butchered. .
     
     
The young, old Mrs Tandon thought bitterly, are veryj resilient: her grandchild Bhaskar had of course only been! six at the time; but even Veena and Kedarnath had not let* those events embitter their lives. They had returned here to Veena's hometown, and Kedarnath had set himself up in a small way in - of all polluting, carcass-tainted things - the shoe trade. For old Mrs Tandon, the descent from a decent | prosperity could not have been more painful. She had been f willing to tolerate talking to the Nawab Sahib though he | was a Muslim, but when he mentioned comings and goings from Pakistan, it was too much for her imagination. She felt ill. The pleasant chatter of the garden in Brahmpur was amplified into the cries of the blood-mad mobs on the streets of Lahore, the lights into fire. Daily, sometimes hourly, in her imagination she returned to what she still thought of as her city and her home. It had been beautiful before it had become so suddenly hideous ; it had appeared completely secure so shortly before it was lost for ever.
     
     
The Nawab Sahib did not notice that anything was the matter, but Veena did, and quickly changed the subject
     
     
I
     
     
even at the cost of appearing rude. 'Where's Bhaskar ?' she asked her husband.
     
     
'I don't know. I think I saw him near the food, the little frog,' said Kedarnath.
     
     
'I wish you wouldn't call him that,' said Veena. 'He is your son. It's not auspicious '
     
     
'It's not my name for him, it's Maan's,' said Kedarnath with a smile. He enjoyed being mildly henpecked. 'But I'll call him whatever you want me to.'
     
     
Veena led her mother-in-law away. And to distract the old lady she did in fact get involved in looking for her son. Finally they found Bhaskar. He was not eating anything but simply standing under the great multicoloured cloth canopy that covered the food tables, gazing upwards with pleased and abstract wonderment at the elaborate geometrical patterns - red rhombuses, green trapeziums, yellow squares and blue triangles - from which it had been stitched together.
     
     
1.9
     
     
THE crowds had thinned; the guests, some