A Boy in the Marriage Bed

We must learn to be mature; but this not some school lesson, taught by a teacher from textbooks. No famous names to memorise; no multiplication table repeated until absorbed into the very marrow of the mind. Not at all! It is to stumble along the path of experience, where, the days short and the nights long, we are buffeted by the elements, soaked in rain, knocked sideways by blustery winds. Tough travel, that many find too rough; like this chap in Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s The Householder: ‘I don’t want to be on this path. Get me off it!’ Poor sap, he wants to retire to some safe shelter, where somebody else can do the hard work. Given the keys to his home, this young man fumbles with the lock. How do such characters grow up; take charge of a house they lack the means to run?

The rite of marriage. That long exercise in living together, when, our vanities bruised, we have to exercise those underused muscles of compromise and ego-abnegation. The first excitement of sex passing into the dull regularities of domestic routine, with its moods and moans, we must slowly adjust to the obstacle that is another person. Her needs! Her wants! ‘What! but she’s telling me what to do.’ Oh dear. ‘You’re not listening!’ Ouch! This more than a metaphorical slap in the face. Suddenly one has to adapt, become a more flexible kind of human. This can take a long time, as a way of life is dismantled and then rebuilt into a very different shape, designed by somebody else. The dreams of love turning into the hard work of a family, as we surrender the self to the exigencies of others.

In years Prem is a young adult, but mentally and emotionally he’s remains an adolescent. Poor boy! with all the hang-ups of a typical teenager: shy, gauche, bedevilled with self- consciousness which spoil the joys of sex with a puritan’s shame. Self-obsessed but insecure. A terrible combination. That shaky egotism, built on the sands of ignorance and misunderstanding, apt to topple him over when he tries to assert himself; an innocent in a world he’s too weak to dominate. It takes him a long time to accommodate to his lowly status and impotence. It is an odd lesson. A husband. A man with responsibilities. The glories of a wife’s body. ‘Surely I’m a very important personality.’ Not so. The realities don’t match the image: he is just a company man, who must kowtow to the boss. Always at the mercy of forces stronger than one’s self. Life a confusing business...when an adult you lose freedom rather than gain it.

It begins with the marriage. Ashamed of his desires, awkward with emotions he cannot articulate...it is like living in an unfamiliar house; its shutters closed, the lights turned off, one forever bumping into the furniture. A child lives in a society of commands, their own or others, to which there are two choices: submission or defiance. It becomes complicated in the teenage years, when insisting on our will we find others indifferent to ourselves. Angst and anger! Love (or religion) the usual salvation. In love it is easy: both egos melt into a liquid mercury; our acts as fluid as each other’s desires. This cannot last. All begins to solidify shortly after the honeymoon. Life becoming a puzzle for which there is no simple solution, as we work out a modus vivendi with this strange person. We can’t just give orders. And have to second guess someone whose personality changes like the weather. How do you negotiate a life with somebody else? Bump! Bump! Bang! as we knock over a delicate table, stub our toe against a mahogany sideboard. Unable to meld into an harmonious unit Indu and Prem separate out, making each other’s faults easy to see. Prem is ineffectual. Indu is not pretty, and cannot cook well. Resentment rising on both sides, they are quickly growing apart; Indu preferring the company of Mrs Seigal and her cronies to a husband whose company brings pain rather than pleasure. The marriage’s nadir when a pregnant Indu returns to the family home. Nothing binds these two together.

With his wife away, his mother on a visit, Prem feels the fragility of a salary man; how easy to fall victim to events. Lacking independent property, without family wealth, and sans a hero’s superhuman skills, sans their charisma, our chap has no insurance against society’s perils. When things go wrong his entire life feels about to collapse; for home depends upon Indu’s feelings, those difficult and uncharted waters, which are carrying her away; while his job is easily ended; that rented flat lost tomorrow. One storm and the boat is wrecked.... Only in dreams is there rescue.

Prem wanted very much to be one of them. If one succeeded in getting into government service, one’s future was settled; there was nothing more to fear. And one belonged somewhere, one was part of something bigger than oneself. That was just what Prem wanted: he felt a great need to be absorbed. He knew that this could never happen to him in Khanna Private College, for Khanna Private College was neither big nor impartial enough. But Government was: it was like a stern kind father who supported his children and demanded nothing in return but their subservience.

Strange to think of bureaucracy as a paradise; but for many it is the perfect antidote for the uncertainties that infect our lives. A truth lost amongst the mass of jeremiads that we hurl against the bureaucrats. Shouting at the very people who protect us a wonderful camouflage for our shameful secret, this fear of life, its endless risks, those interminable dangers. Get me on the payroll!

It gets worse when Prem’s mother visits. She takes over! It is too much. He arranges for his sister to invite her to Bangalore. Here is the beginning of change, of growth. Once having enjoyed the pleasures of sex Prem wants a wife not a mama. Though it’s not just sex, for with pregnancy Indu’s beauty grows; her body, her clothes, the way she dresses; then the new life she opens up: he misses her. In transit between adolescence and young adulthood Prem still has the passivity of youth; but now he is starting to feel its oppression, those limits on his will and liberty. Desire forces him to act, and he writes to his sister. It has a catalysing effect, as with all action. Overcoming his reticence he asks Mr Khanna for a rise. It is his first rebellion, and, his emotions carrying him away, he goes too far...there is an altercation with Mr Chaddha, who had publicly reprimanded Prem for his inability to discipline his classroom. In seeking redress Prem is humiliated: called to the principal’s office he is threatened with the sack. A shock. Within the armoured-plated dreamworld of the adolescent mind he was imagining the wonders his rise would buy; impossible to conceive that Mr Khanna would threaten his future. The world suddenly a strange and threatening place. ‘Lose my job!’ Life feels very fragile. Some terrible giant has stamped his foot in Narcissus’s pool; forcing Prem to forget himself and look around the landscape. The world is not going to submit to his every want and wish. An epiphany. Both his ideas and his behaviour must change if he is to survive. Be wary of colleagues; keep a closer watch on his class; try at all times to fit in; do not attract the attention of the powerful; weak men must hide between the cracks of life, otherwise they will be squashed. It is to step onto the foothills of understanding; but it will be some time yet before Prem reaches the base camp of maturity. Even now he tries to exercise his rights even though he knows they will be refused; the foolhardy honour of young men, so desperate for self-respect. He speaks to Mr Seigal about the rent. Like Mr Khanna his landlord doesn’t so much answer as ignore his request. As if never spoken. The little man is insignificant. He hardly exists.

But he was weak and alone. He was on one side with Indu behind him and the coming baby, and on the other side were the Khannas and the Seigals and Mr Chaddha and his students and doctor’s bill and income tax forms and all the other horrors the world had in store for him. He felt that he was required to pit his strength against all these, and yet he knew from the beginning that it was hopeless because he did not have much strength. He knew that the only way he could survive was by submitting to and propitiating the other side.

His mother leaves, Indu comes back, and the couple become intimate. At last they can enjoy the act of love without shame and self-consciousness. Prem able to speak the prose of feeling, though it’ll be a while before he sings its poetry (if he ever does). No matter. To enjoy each another is enough. This is growth. Confident in his existence Prem invites a school friend - Raj and his wife - to dinner. Adults are allowed to be hosts. The rite of marriage is complete. A householder.

Along the way there are picaresque adventures, where the author exercises her satirical wit. We meet the ‘spiritual’ German Hans, who talks in the clichés of the mystic East. He sees Prem - ordinary, dull, heavily materialist Prem - as a sort of fakir, simply because an Indian. Blind to anything beyond an idée fixe. Yet this helps Prem grow; for in keeping silent, in allowing Hans to project his ideas onto himself, he makes a friend. Our boy is learning to play a role, so crucial to city survival. Hans is a fool, but a good-hearted one; another teenager, but with all the confidence of wealth and a European culture. He expects the world to revolve around himself, and through his bumptious egotism makes sure that it does. Prem will never enjoy that luxury. The Anglo-Indians are treated with equal wit: Kitty talking about the Great Infinity while knitting a pair of socks. Not that the religious are mocked. Prem’s visits to the Swami are his happiest times outside Indu’s embrace. This religion very different from the foolish beliefs of Hans and Kitty. This Hinduism is down-to- earth; as much to do with collective pleasures - talking, debating, dancing, eating - as with ideas and the spirit. It is to give one’s self up to the joys of a group. Weak Prem, feeling lonely, is attracted to this way of life; yet he is not strong enough to follow it religiously(!). Only a holiday. Typical of the salary man, who wants a secure and comfortable life; now starting to come into view. Prem is young, he is learning. This particular lesson, though not finished, ends at the last full stop.

Review: The Householder