A Fine Family: A Novel by Gurcharan Das

Author:Gurcharan Das
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9789351184270
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2000-10-13T18:30:00+00:00

9

In the following weeks, Arjun tried to find out everything he could about Priti and her family. This was not difficult because they were well known. But it was not easy to hide his feelings when he mentioned her name. Gradually he became adept at steering the conversation over family dinner so as to learn more about her. His parents may have guessed that something was afoot, but they said nothing.

What Arjun learned seemed only to extend rather than diminish the gap between Priti and himself. That their grandfathers knew each other was the single reassuring fact he could fall back upon. He wondered how close Bauji had been to Sir Sanat Mehta. Did Priti know about Bauji? Even if she did, would it matter to her? Probably not. He tried to picture Bauji and Sanat Mehta talking in the courtyard at Lyallpur. But his memories of Lyallpur were vague and the picture blurry. Nevertheless he visualized the two men sitting under the shade of the mango tree, and Bauji offering papaya to his friend. Bauji used to offer fruit to everyone.

Bauji had lost everything in the partition while the Mehtas had not been affected. For one thing, their mills had been in Amritsar, which had come to India under the Radcliffe award. Whereas Bauji had invested in property in and around Lyallpur, Sanat Mehta had spread his real estate investments in Delhi, Simla, and as far away as Calcutta. Even his mansion in Lahore he had sold off during the ’40s, having guessed that the partition of the Punjab was inevitable, and that Lahore might go to Pakistan in the partition plan.

Apart from their house in Simla, which Sanat Mehta had bought from a departing Englishman in the ’30s for a fraction of its real value, he had made an impressive investment in an apple orchard in Kotgarh, about fifty miles north of Simla. He had got it virtually for nothing, although he had been called a fool at that time. After Independence, California-style apples had become popular and the orchard was now worth a fortune. Although their money was old, the status of the Mehtas was not due to their wealth alone. It also owed to the fact that Priti’s father had been active in the Congress movement in the ’30s and ’40s. During the freedom struggle, famous figures including Gandhi, Patel and even Tagore had visited their house in Lahore. Nehru had been a regular guest during the famous Simla round table conferences with the Viceroy. Karan knew Priti’s father from his days in the nationalist movement.

With his khaki canvas school bag slung on his back, Arjun passed Priti’s house twice a day. As he approached, his heartbeat would quicken. Even before the three-thirty bell, which announced the end of school, he would begin to think of her. When the bell rang, he would quickly gather his books and run out before any of his school friends decided to walk home with him. A round red post-box—a

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