The Householder Read online

  ‘No, sir,’ Prem said, ‘Mr. Sohan Lal does not wish to speak with you.’ But then he realized that perhaps this was not true; perhaps Sohan Lal did wish to speak to the Principal about something, who knew? Prem felt that the situation was getting rather complicated and that meanwhile he was getting farther and farther away from asking what he had come to ask. He decided to leave aside Sohan Lal and speak out boldly. ‘Sir,’ he began.

  ‘I think your students must be waiting for you in class,’ Mr. Khanna said; he finished his tea, wiped his mouth and stood up. Mrs. Khanna could still be heard shouting.

  ‘Sir,’ said Prem, ‘you are yourself a father.’

  ‘It is ten-fifteen.’

  ‘So much?’ Prem cried. His students would be waiting. They would be sitting in class making a noise and perhaps Mr. Chaddha would pass remarks at them which might disgrace Prem. He begged permission to leave and hurried away. Half-way down the stairs it struck him that he had not asked after all. He hesitated, wondering for a moment whether to go back. But he could not keep his students waiting any longer.

  Afterwards he felt very unhappy. He had failed, after all his good resolutions. And what was there so difficult about asking for a rise in salary? It was a very natural thing—everybody, at some time in their life, needed a rise in salary. He should have asked straight out, stood up as a responsible citizen, as a husband and a father, demanding his rights and the rights of his family … instead of talking about tea and Sohan Lal. When he thought about Sohan Lal, he felt more unhappy still. Perhaps he had even damaged his friend’s position; the Principal seemed actually to think that it was Sohan Lal who wanted a rise in salary.

  Later, when he saw Sohan Lal in the staffroom, Prem at once had a guilty feeling. He went up to him and said, ‘Today I did a very strange thing.’

  Sohan Lal smiled. He had an enchanting smile: his teeth were very large and protruding and when he smiled he showed them all, giving an impression of great heartiness.

  Prem smiled back at him and said, ‘Yes, it was very strange.…’ It seemed quite easy to tell Sohan Lal everything. About Mr. Khanna and the rise in salary and the baby and everything. Sohan Lal was bending down to fit his cycle-clips round his trousers. Classes were finished and they were all about to go home. ‘May I walk with you a little way?’ Prem said.

  ‘You see,’ he said, walking beside Sohan Lal who was pushing his cycle along the road, ‘I went to speak with the Principal today.’ The students were going home too, some walking along the pavement four and five abreast, others jauntily pushing off on shiny new motor-scooters. Some of them called ‘Good night, sir!’ to Prem and Sohan Lal, in reply to which Sohan Lal waved his hand at them, in a rather embarrassed manner, for like Prem he too was not very good at dealing with the students.

  ‘Things are difficult for me,’ Prem said. ‘My salary is small—you see, I am married and I pay a rent of 45 rupees and my wife is pregnant.’ He shot a quick side glance at Sohan Lal: this was the first time he had told anyone, face to face like this, about Indu being pregnant.

  Sohan Lal was, as Prem had expected him to be, understanding. He said at once ‘You wanted to ask about a rise in salary?’

  ‘What can you do with 175 rupees a month, when your rent alone is 45 rupees?’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘It is strange,’ Prem said. ‘He did not understand.’ He shot Sohan Lal another side glance. ‘He thought it was you who wanted a rise in salary.’

  ‘I?’ Sohan Lal stood still in the road, holding his cycle, and looked at Prem.

  ‘Yes; I told you it was strange.’ Both stood and laughed. Students passed them and looked at them in surprise.

  ‘But of course—he is right,’ Sohan Lal said. ‘I want a rise in salary.’

  Prem said, ‘I told him you are yourself a father, sir; like that I told him.’

  ‘I pay only 15 rupees rent.’

  ‘Of course, in Mehrauli …’ Prem said. ‘It is a very nice place,’ he added quickly. ‘Only a little far.’

  ‘It is very far,’ Sohan Lal said. ‘But where else could I get a place for my whole family for only 15 rupees?’

  Prem sighed and said, ‘When once one becomes the father of a family, one has to make many sacrifices.’

  Sohan Lal smiled in rapturous agreement: this was evidently a subject on which, if he chose, he could speak a lot. But all he said was ‘When is your wife expecting?’

  ‘I think in another six months,’ Prem said. ‘Before that I must have an increase in salary or perhaps find another job. It is very difficult,’ he sighed.

  ‘You are still young,’ Sohan Lal said. ‘Who knows perhaps you will win great success in life——’

  ‘I have only a second-class B.A.’

  ‘Who knows,’ Sohan Lal said with a sweet smile. He put one foot on the pedal of his cycle, but before he went, he said unexpectedly, ‘Perhaps one day you will come to my house.’

  Prem was touched. He very much wanted Sohan Lal to be his friend. He had not yet made any new friends in Delhi and he had not been asked to anyone’s house.

  He had really only one friend in Delhi. This was Raj, who had gone to college with him in Ankhpur and now had a job in the Ministry of Food. Ever since Prem had come to Delhi, four months ago, they had made a point of meeting on Monday evenings.

  Formerly Prem had looked forward all the week to these Monday meetings. He had been so happy to have someone he knew well to talk to: he had confided all his thoughts to Raj, had recalled the old days at Ankhpur, speculated on the whereabouts and possible destinies of old friends who had gone their various ways. But he had begun to notice that Raj did not seem to be enjoying these meetings as much as he himself did. He often looked at his watch and, Prem noticed, did not always listen very attentively. And once, while Prem was talking about an old college friend of theirs, he had said with almost a yawn in his voice, ‘What is the use of remembering these people? They have gone their way and we have gone ours.’ The only two things Raj seemed to be interested in now were his job and his family.

  They always met in the same place, by the box-office of the Regal Cinema. Not that they ever went into the cinema together, but it was the only place they could think of. Prem was usually the first to arrive. He stood by the little glass window which said Booking Closed and watched the other people standing around in the foyer. These were mostly young men in coloured bush-shirts, who looked about them with lazy eyes while drinking coca-cola or eating potato chips in plastic bags bought from the refreshment bar. When a girl came into the foyer, they straightened themselves and nudged one another and made remarks at which they laughed loudly. The girls always pretended not to notice. Except for the fact that the cinema was larger and there were more people about and everything was smarter and more city-like, it was not much different from what it had been like in Ankhpur: just so had Prem and Raj and their friends stood about in the cinema, eaten potato chips and looked at girls.

  But when he saw Raj come into the foyer, Prem realized that now that time was finished for them. Beside these youths in coloured shirts, Raj looked staid and settled and married; he had a preoccupied frown on his face and his shoulders were a little hunched. It was evident that he would never again stand about in cinema foyers and look at girls.

  And indeed the first thing he said was, ‘This is not a good place to meet. All these boys standing about.… Loafers,’ he said with distaste. They went out together. Prem walked beside his friend in silence, looking away from him for he felt sad that Raj should already have forgotten what was no longer than two years ago.

  ‘Are we going to drink a cup of tea?’ Raj asked irritably. In his more downcast moments Prem had already begun to suspect that Raj only met him for the sake of the tea for which it somehow always happened that Prem paid.

  They never went into any of the coffee-houses in the main shopping arcade. They had once ventured into one, but had been so overawed by the elaborate decorations and by the many waiters i
n white uniforms overlooked by a manager in a raw-silk suit that they had quickly gone out again. They felt safer turning down the side-streets and sitting down outside one of the makeshift eating-stalls called the Paris Hotel or Punjab Hotel or Pearl Palace. They always went to a different one because Raj always had some objection to the ones they had been to before. Prem thought that was a pity; he would like to have gone always to the same one, so that they would be known there, as they had been known in the places they had gone to in Ankhpur, and greeted with smiles and a jovial shout of, ‘Again the same?’

  But now nobody smiled when they sat down outside a stall; only a boy came, wiped the big wooden table and stood waiting for them to order. Raj ordered quite a lot and, as soon as it came, began quickly to eat. ‘Today I am in a hurry,’ he explained. ‘My baby was not well when I left this morning. Maybe I will have to take her to the doctor.’

  Prem thought of telling him about his own baby that was on the way. But it had been much easier to tell Sohan Lal. Perhaps because Sohan Lal had not known him when he was young and unmarried and had dreamt about being in love. But Raj knew all that—they had lain together in the grass under a peepul tree and had talked about girls and what it might be like to sleep with one. Now both of them were married to wives their families had chosen for them.

  The proprietor of the eating-stall, a big man with a newly shaven skull and a rather dirty vest, was frying fish-cakes; they sizzled in a lake of hot fat while he pushed them about with a stick. The serving-boy squatted in front of the stall and washed dishes in a bucket. A very small puppy with tufts of hair missing ran about wagging its tail and pushing its nose into the dust. There were no customers apart from Prem and Raj. The eating-stall next door had no customers either, and from time to time the two proprietors exchanged scraps of conversation.

  Prem said, ‘Do you remember Kakaji’s?’ Kakaji’s was the eating-stall they had gone to in Ankhpur: Kakaji gave credit to all the students for biscuits and tea. If any student ran up too large a bill, Kakaji went and complained to the Principal of the college, who was Prem’s father. Each time the boys passed a resolution to boycott Kakaji’s, but the proprietors of the other eating-stalls in Ankhpur would not give them credit, so they always came back.

  Raj, chewing with bulging cheeks, made a noncommittal sound, which made it clear that his interest in Kakaji’s had long since evaporated. This was not surprising, for Prem asked the same question every week. Indeed, Prem himself did not feel so much interest in the subject any more, and only touched on it for something to say. Not that there were not plenty of other things which he would have preferred saying; but he could not get over his shyness with Raj.

  ‘Nice smell,’ said Raj, referring to the fish-cakes.

  Prem swallowed hard and led up to the subject at present closest to his heart: ‘Today I went to see my Principal.’

  ‘I don’t usually eat fish at this time of day, otherwise I might try some.’

  ‘Things are rather difficult for me now,’ Prem said. ‘You see, I pay 45 rupees rent——’

  ‘I also pay 25 rupees. And don’t forget I have a baby to support.’

  ‘As a matter of fact——’ Prem slowly began. His ears grew hot.

  ‘You have no idea how expensive a baby can be. It drinks so much milk and then it needs clothes——’

  ‘I know. That is why I went to see the Principal. But I don’t think he understood what I meant to say.’

  ‘It is fantastic how quickly a baby can grow out of its clothes. And as soon as it starts walking, there are shoes also and those go even quicker.’ Raj spoke with the same animation on this subject as he had once spoken about love and girls and Kakaji.

  Prem said, ‘I shall have to ask him again. Next time I shall say right out I want more pay.’

  ‘You are lucky not to be in Government service. In Government service whom can you ask? Can you go and say Mr. Government, I want more pay?’ Raj was pleased with this joke and leant back to laugh. A young beggar-woman with a pretty face and merry eyes shining out of dirt and rags and a baby sleeping in her arms, approached them and began her professional whine: ‘Sahib,’ she said, holding out one cupped hand. Raj motioned her away: ‘You will get nothing here,’ he said.

  ‘I may have to look for another job,’ Prem said.

  ‘Of course,’ Raj said, ‘Government service has many other compensations. For instance, there is a pension and provident fund’

  ‘It would be good if I could get a job with Government.’

  ‘Look at my child, how hungry he is,’ the beggar-woman said.

  ‘A Government job is a safe job. Nobody can tell you get out——’

  ‘For four days I have put nothing in my stomach.’ She patted it vigorously and looked at them with laughing eyes.

  ‘Go away!’ Raj said, and the proprietor also shouted, ‘Get out!’

  ‘You are my mother and my father,’ the beggar-woman said, edging nearer. Prem put his hand in his pocket and gave her a coin. She inspected it critically, then hitched up the sleeping child and moved off without further comment.

  ‘You are a fool to give,’ Raj said. Prem shrugged; he too knew he was a fool, but somehow he felt better after giving. ‘Wait till you have a family, then you will not be so free with your money,’ Raj said.

  ‘As a matter of fact——’

  ‘Now I must go. This morning my baby was sick.’

  The serving-boy came to take their money. ‘How much?’ Raj inquired, his hand pretending to grope towards his pocket. Prem drew out the money and, while he paid, Raj turned round in his chair to where the beggar-woman was now begging at the next stall; he said to her, ‘What, you are here again?’ in an angry voice. When the paying was over, he turned back and told Prem, ‘Again you have paid, this is very bad.’ Prem said, ‘Then next Monday?’

  He was surprised to find Indu downstairs on the Seigals’ front porch. What surprised him further was that she was happy and smiling; she never looked like that at home. The Seigals too were smiling. Mr. Seigal stood with his legs apart and his hands laid on his big belly; he was looking down on Indu with great benevolence, saying, ‘Why don’t you come more often?’ and when he saw Prem he shouted, ‘Why do you keep your wife locked up all the time?’

  ‘I?’ said Prem and was about to start defending himself when he realized it was a joke. Then he hung his head and shuffled his feet and shyly smiled.

  ‘You must both come,’ said Mrs. Seigal. ‘What is the use of sitting by yourselves up there?’ She was crocheting, hooking the needle with great dexterity. From time to time she spread out and flattened the finished part and looked at it critically. Indu said, ‘How beautiful’ and fingered it. ‘It is a tablecloth,’ said Mrs. Seigal; and added, ‘With things like this we keep busy.’

  ‘While we men slave to bring home the money,’ said Mr. Seigal to Prem with a manly guffaw which Prem tried but failed to echo. He never felt at ease with the Seigals. For one thing, they were his landlords, and remembrance of the 45 rupees rent he was obliged to pay them in the first week of every month made a really hearty relationship difficult. And then their way of life was so much more expansive than anything he had been brought up to; somehow he could not help feeling a tinge of disapproval at their nightly card-parties, the lights and the noise and the radio, the whisky, the cups of tea and the plates of sweetmeats so freely circulated. He did not think that such ease was conducive to a really noble life.

  Mr. Seigal patted his hands against the sides of his belly and asked Prem, ‘So how are you getting on?’ in an offhand tone of bonhomie which did not require any answer. Prem, however, felt very much tempted to reply. The thought of his increasing responsibilities was so pressing to him that he would have liked to share it with anyone who showed even the slightest interest in his concerns.

  ‘You can come and sit with me and we will both crochet a quilt together,’ Mrs. Seigal was telling Indu, who smiled and looked happy at the prospect. Prem caught a glimpse o
f her face out of the corner of his eye and it struck him that, when she smiled, she was really quite pretty. At the same time another thought occurred to him and that was that she had told the Seigals—or at least Mrs. Seigal who would, in her turn, have told her husband—that she was pregnant. In which case, all the time that he was standing here, they knew what it was he did with Indu; perhaps they were even thinking about it. Mr. Seigal was looking at him in a shrewd, knowing, amused way, which might very well mean that he was thinking about it.

  ‘Work to do … papers to correct,’ Prem muttered, making a hasty departure. Indu followed reluctantly behind. The smile had gone from her face, giving way to a look of disappointment. She even sighed, softly but nevertheless enough to irritate Prem. He said, ‘What is the matter?’ in a tone of voice which dared her to say anything was the matter.

  ‘Nothing,’ Indu softly and obediently sighed, with her face turned aside from him.

  ‘When you are with them you smile. Here you only sigh.’ To this she had no reply, and her silence encouraged him to probe his grievance further. ‘I work so hard all day,’ he reminded her, ‘and when I come home, there you sit and sigh.’

  She was squatting on the floor, picking at the hem of her sari. He looked down at her meek bent head. ‘What is the matter?’ he said. ‘Are you unwell?’ Her head shook. ‘Then why do you sigh?’ He paced the room in some agitation. ‘It is I who should sigh. If you knew how many worries I have …’ He wanted to add ‘because of you’ but kindness restrained him.

  ‘What is a salary of only 175 rupees? It is very little, it is nothing. Our rent alone costs us 45 rupees a month.’ He paced some more and ran his hand through his hair. ‘Just think,’ he cried, ‘45 rupees!’

  Suddenly she said, ‘Why don’t you ask Mr. Seigal to make your rent less?’