A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth Page A

teachers were happy to ensure that books they needed for their courses would be readily available to their students. Many of them resented the University and Allied Bookshop for its entrenched, lethargic, unresponsive and high-handed ways.
     
     
After classes, Lata and Malati, both dressed casually in their usual salwaar-kameez, went to Nabiganj to wander around and have a cup of coffee at the Blue Danube coffee house. This activity, known to university students as 'ganjing', they could afford to indulge in about once a week. As they passed the Imperial Book Depot, they were drawn magnetically in. Each wandered off to her favourite shelves and subjects. Malati headed straight for the novels, Lata went for poetry. On the way, however, she paused by the
     
     
61f
     
     
science shelves, not because she understood much science, but, rather, because she did not. Whenever she opened a scientific book and saw whole paragraphs of incomprehensible words and symbols, she felt a sense of wonder at the great territories of learning that lay beyond her - the sum of so many noble and purposive attempts to make objective sense of the world. She enjoyed the feeling; it suited her serious moods; and this afternoon she was feeling serious. She picked up a random book and read a random paragraph :
     
     
It follows from De Moivre's formula that z” = m (cos n + i sin n). Thus, if we allow complex number z to describe a circle of radius r about the origin, z“ will describe n complete times a circle of radius m as z describes its circle once. We also recall that r, the modulus of z, written |z|, gives the distance of z from O, and that if z' = x' + iy', then |z - z' is the distance between z and z'. With these preliminaries we may proceed to the proof of the theorem.
     
     
What exactly it was that pleased her in these sentences she did not know, but they conveyed weight, comfort, inevitability. Her mind strayed to Varun and his mathematical studies. She hoped that her brief words to him the day after the wedding had done him some good. She should have written to him more often to bolster his courage, but with exams coming up she had very little time for anything. It was at the insistence of Malati - who was even busiet than she was - that she had gone ganjing at all.
     
     
She read the paragraph again, looking serious. 'We also recall' and 'with these preliminaries' drew her into a cornpact with the author of these verities and mysteries. The words were assured, and therefore reassuring: things were what they were even in this uncertain world, and she could proceed from there.
     
     
She smiled to herself now, not aware of her surroundings. Still holding the book, she looked up. And this was how a young man, who had been standing not far from
     
     
62her, was included, unintentionally, in her smile. He was pleasantly startled, and smiled back at her. Lata frowned at him and looked down at the page again. But she could not concentrate on it, and after a few moments, replaced it on the shelf before making her way to Poetry.
     
     
Lata, whatever she thought of love itself, liked love poetry. 'Maud' was one of her favourite poems. She began to flip through a volume of Tennyson.
     
     
The tall young man, who had (Lata noticed) slightly wavy black hair and very good, rather aquiline, looks, seemed to be as interested in poetry as in mathematics, because a few minutes later Lata was aware that he had shifted his attention to the poetry shelves, and was glancing through the anthologies. Lata felt that his eyes were on her from time to time. This annoyed her and she did not look up. When, despite herself, she did, she noticed him innocently immersed in his reading. She could not resist glancing at the cover of his book. It was a Penguin : Contemporary Verse. He now looked up, and the tables were turned. Before she could glance down again, he said : 'It's unusual for someone to be interested in both poetry and mathematics.'
     
     
'Is