argument against this, but then the canal engineer’s father died. There was to be a mourning period, the marriage was again postponed.
Virmati entered AS College, the bastion of male learning. It had four hundred boys to six girls. Virmati was the seventh.
*
Kasturi spoke to the Professor’s wife: ‘What are these college-going boys like? Virmati will be among so many of them! So few girls to so many boys! I do not feel easy.’
Kasturi and the woman had become quite friendly, and Kasturi turned to her for advice about her daughter’s education.
‘Don’t worry, Behenji,’ said the woman. ‘They are all from good families. And they have no time for anything else besides studies. Even learning in the classroom is not enough, they come to him at home. Books, records, pictures, photos, all he shares with them.’ Here the woman put her palla across her mouth and uttered a tiny laugh into it. Her husband’s popularity was a source of vicarious pleasure for her, but she was modest and did not want Kasturi to think she was boasting about him.
‘Well, you know, so if you think it is all right‚’ hesitated Kasturi.
‘Yes, I do‚’ said the woman. ‘Some of them are married, some of them are engaged. They come to him with problems in their personal lives as well.’
‘Such as?’
The woman became vague. She wasn’t sure, but it had something to do with the books her husband taught, and the way in which he taught them. She herself distrusted books, they had caused her so much misery, but as the Professor’s wife she was hardly in a position to say so. It was just that the whole business involved so many other things as well. Students at all hours, students beginning to be dissatisfied with life the way it was, with the brides their parents had chosen. Thank God, Virmati’s fiancé was an engineer, an educated, working man. No, no, she assured Kasturi, Virmati’s future was safe in AS college.
*
Virmati always sat in the front row with the four other girls who were in the Professor’s class, and that was the only place he saw her in college, flower-like, against a backdrop of male students. The Professor knew the seven girls spent their time between classes in a small room meant for them, next to the principal’s office, on the inner side of the courtyard. Through the thin bamboo curtain that covered the door, they could see what was going on in the morning assembly, could see when all the boys had reached their class, and when it was safe to venture forth, heads muffled in dupattas dashing to their reserved seats in the front.
Once, the class had been more than usually full. Virmati, a little late, found no room left in the first row. She hesitated at the door. The Professor, sensing it was she, did not look up as he might ordinarily have done. Ignoring the half-dozen young men who rose to give her their place, Virmati sat on the floor in front of his desk, looking up at him with her large eyes. The Professor drank in the symbolism of her posture greedily. It moved him so deeply that he remembered it in all its detail even when his children had grown up. The murmur and rustle of students with scratching pens, their heads receding in rows, the whirr and click-click of the fans overhead, and the stillness at the heart of it, enclosing him and Virmati, Virmati with her offering eyes in her open face.
Later, when the deed was done, and he was in love with her, insisting on death if she were so cruel as to deny him, he discovered she was myopic. She still stared at him, with that thoughtful, dreamy, not quite seeing gaze. He took her to the eye doctor. Yes, she needed glasses. Not strong ones, just a mild prescription. With them, she looked more studious, less flower-like and appealing. But by then, the Professor’s desire to possess had extended to her heart and mind.
IX
‘Kailashnath Mama?’
‘Yes, Ida?’
‘You know the college where my father taught?’
‘Who
Virmati entered AS College, the bastion of male learning. It had four hundred boys to six girls. Virmati was the seventh.
*
Kasturi spoke to the Professor’s wife: ‘What are these college-going boys like? Virmati will be among so many of them! So few girls to so many boys! I do not feel easy.’
Kasturi and the woman had become quite friendly, and Kasturi turned to her for advice about her daughter’s education.
‘Don’t worry, Behenji,’ said the woman. ‘They are all from good families. And they have no time for anything else besides studies. Even learning in the classroom is not enough, they come to him at home. Books, records, pictures, photos, all he shares with them.’ Here the woman put her palla across her mouth and uttered a tiny laugh into it. Her husband’s popularity was a source of vicarious pleasure for her, but she was modest and did not want Kasturi to think she was boasting about him.
‘Well, you know, so if you think it is all right‚’ hesitated Kasturi.
‘Yes, I do‚’ said the woman. ‘Some of them are married, some of them are engaged. They come to him with problems in their personal lives as well.’
‘Such as?’
The woman became vague. She wasn’t sure, but it had something to do with the books her husband taught, and the way in which he taught them. She herself distrusted books, they had caused her so much misery, but as the Professor’s wife she was hardly in a position to say so. It was just that the whole business involved so many other things as well. Students at all hours, students beginning to be dissatisfied with life the way it was, with the brides their parents had chosen. Thank God, Virmati’s fiancé was an engineer, an educated, working man. No, no, she assured Kasturi, Virmati’s future was safe in AS college.
*
Virmati always sat in the front row with the four other girls who were in the Professor’s class, and that was the only place he saw her in college, flower-like, against a backdrop of male students. The Professor knew the seven girls spent their time between classes in a small room meant for them, next to the principal’s office, on the inner side of the courtyard. Through the thin bamboo curtain that covered the door, they could see what was going on in the morning assembly, could see when all the boys had reached their class, and when it was safe to venture forth, heads muffled in dupattas dashing to their reserved seats in the front.
Once, the class had been more than usually full. Virmati, a little late, found no room left in the first row. She hesitated at the door. The Professor, sensing it was she, did not look up as he might ordinarily have done. Ignoring the half-dozen young men who rose to give her their place, Virmati sat on the floor in front of his desk, looking up at him with her large eyes. The Professor drank in the symbolism of her posture greedily. It moved him so deeply that he remembered it in all its detail even when his children had grown up. The murmur and rustle of students with scratching pens, their heads receding in rows, the whirr and click-click of the fans overhead, and the stillness at the heart of it, enclosing him and Virmati, Virmati with her offering eyes in her open face.
Later, when the deed was done, and he was in love with her, insisting on death if she were so cruel as to deny him, he discovered she was myopic. She still stared at him, with that thoughtful, dreamy, not quite seeing gaze. He took her to the eye doctor. Yes, she needed glasses. Not strong ones, just a mild prescription. With them, she looked more studious, less flower-like and appealing. But by then, the Professor’s desire to possess had extended to her heart and mind.
IX
‘Kailashnath Mama?’
‘Yes, Ida?’
‘You know the college where my father taught?’
‘Who
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