A Suitable Boy Read Free

going to have to visit me at his house once I leave the hostel and start living there. And since he'll be my brother-in-law you'll have to like him too. Promise me you will.'
     
     
'I won't,' said Malati firmly. 'He's taking you away from me.'
     
     
'He's doing nothing of the sort, Malati,' said Lata. 'My mother, with her fine sense of household economy, is dumping me on him.'
     
     
'Well, I don't see why you should obey your mother. Tell her you can't bear to be parted from me.'
     
     
'I always obey my mother,' said Lata. 'And besides, who will pay my hostel fees if she doesn't ? And it will be very nice for me to live with Savita for a while. I refuse to lose you. You really must visit us - you must keep visiting us. If you don't, I'll know how much value to put on your friendship.'
     
     
Malati looked unhappy for a second or two, then recovered. 'Who's this?' she asked. Aparna was looking at her in a severe and uncompromising manner.
     
     
'My niece, Aparna,' said Lata. 'Say hello to Malati Aunty, Aparna.'
     
     
'Hello,' said Aparna, who had reached the end of her patience. 'Can I have a pistachio ice-cream, please?'
     
     
'Yes, kuchuk, of course, I'm sorry,' said Lata. 'Come, let's all go together and get some.'
     
     
1.4
     
     
LATA soon lost Malati to a clutch of college friends, but before she and Aparna could get much further, they were captured by Aparna's parents.
     
     
ii'So there you are, you precious little runaway,' said the resplendent Meenakshi, implanting a kiss on her daughter's forehead. 'Isn't she precious, Arun? Now where ha|£'you been, you precious truant ?'
     
     
'I went to find Daadi,' began Aparna. 'And then I found her, but she had to go into the house because of Savita Bua, but I couldn't go with her, and then Lata Bua took me to have ice-cream, but we couldn't because -' But Meenakshi had lost interest and had turned to Lata. « } 'That pink doesn't really suit you, Luts,' said Meenakshi. 'It lacks a certain - a certain -'
     
     
'Je ne sais quoi ?' prompted a suave friend of her husband's, who was standing nearby.
     
     
'Thank you,' said Meenakshi, with such withering charm that the young fellow glided away for a while and pretended to stare at the stars.
     
     
'No, pink's just not right for you, Luts,' re-affirmed Meenakshi, stretching her long, tawny neck like a relaxed cat and appraising her sister-in-law.
     
     
She herself was wearing a green-and-gold sari of Banaras silk, with a green choli that exposed more of her midriff than Brahmpur society was normally privileged or prepared to see. i
     
     
'Oh,' said Lata, suddenly self-conscious. She knew she f didn't have much dress sense, and imagined she looked rather drab standing next to this bird-of-paradise.
     
     
'Who was that fellow you were talking to?' demanded her brother Arun, who, unlike his wife, had noticed Lata | talking to Maan. Arun was twenty-five, a tall, fair, intelli- f gent, pleasant-looking bully who kept his siblings in place by pummelling their egos. He was fond of reminding them that after their father's death, he was 'in a manner of speaking', in loco parentis to them. 'That was Maan, Fran's brother.' 'Ah.' The word spoke volumes of disapproval. Arun and Meenakshi had arrived just this morning by overnight train from Calcutta, where Arun worked as one of the few Indian executives in the prestigious and largely white firm of Bentsen & Pryce. He had had neither the ;
     
     
I
     
     
time nor the desire to acquaint himself with the Kapoor family - or clan, as he called it - with whom his mother had contrived a match for his sister. He cast his eyes balefully around. Typical of their type to overdo everything, he thought, looking at the coloured lights in the hedge. The crassness of the state politicians, white-capped and effusive, and of Mahesh Kapoor's contingent of rustic relatives excited his finely-tuned disdain. And the fact that neither the brigadier from the Brahmpur Cantonment nor