The day in shadow by Nayantara Sahgal

Author:Nayantara Sahgal [Sahgal, Nayantara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789386651983
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
Published: 2017-07-12T00:00:00+00:00

11

“Inheritance,” Sumer Singh heard his father say as he walked into his suite at the Imperial that evening, “is sure to be scrapped.”

There was an assortment of callers in the drawing room. Aunty This and Uncle That, a tray loaded with eats, and the doddering valet as well as the hotel bearer hovering over it.

“Ah,” said his father, “here comes one of the minor signatories to our Government’s policies.”

Sumer Singh ignored the taunt. Minor! He would have to be dictator of five continents before his father would realize he counted. He smiled. Patience, he counselled himself. One of these days this old man would be dead and gone and that would be the end of that problem. These bodies, he thought contemptuously, creaking old carcasses sitting around holding court over cream cakes in their fool’s paradise of loose talk. As if it mattered what they had to say. The old angered him. These were the fringes of society, along with the sick and the young, who had no contribution to make, who must be carted along like unprofitable baggage. He greeted his father and the others with graceful formality and took the cup of tea offered. Why had he come? Because the past, with its parental authority, its filial obedience, its full quota of trash, had claws of steel impossible to unclasp, however despised. They dug in and one did not dare break away. They would only go when the whole Indian past went, dismembered and ground to fine dust—so that never again could the sneer on his father’s face remind him of his inadequacies.

“So—what is the word on inheritance?” his father continued.

“I am not the Government, father.”

“So you aren’t. One gets rather carried away by the rumours one hears.”

Why did the old devil talk like that? Was he informed, or being his usual sarcastic self? Sumer Singh knew very well what the rumours about him were. Unwillingly he remembered what an English model he had slept with about the time of his staggering election victory had told him.

“It’s really got you, hasn’t it?” she had said shrewdly. “I can tell.”

He had been thrilled beyond words with his success, but annoyed that it showed.

“Oh I know what it does,” she went on.

“Yes?” He was not particularly interested in her chatter.

“There I was, never giving a damn about clothes—I was a teacher, believe it or not, and never wanted to be anything else—and then I won this beauty competition and it turned into a modelling career. And of course it wasn’t just a change of work, it put me down in a different medium. It’s dangerous, Sumer. Before I knew it I was thinking, I am a flawless, fabulous, priceless goddess.”

“You are,” agreed Sumer Singh, warm and replete with her white and gold perfection. “It shows you become what you think.”

“What does that make you?” she asked.

What did that make him? He lay with his hands under his head, his eyes on the ceiling, lost in the dream. What did they

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