Books: An Equal to Equality; Write to Equality

If nothing else, for the range of his accomplishments Vikram Seth must rank as one of the great word craftsmen of this age. Poetry, a novel in verse (The Golden Gate), an epic novel (A Suitable Boy, which one critic compared to War and Peace), even a libretto (Arion and the Dolphin): his repertoire is astonishing. His latest is a novel called An Equal Music (Viking, 381 pages, Rs 500), the story of Michael, a lonely, brooding violinist who lives in London with the memories of Julia -- the "making of me", the pianist with whom he made such melody.

Years later, Michael and Julia meet again. She's married; he's not. She's troubled by her hearing; he is troubled. Julia agrees to join Michael's quartet for a concert in Vienna, where they were together as students an age earlier. In the extract reproduced below, Michael accepts an invitation to lunch at Julia's -- and meet her husband and little son. What follows is Michael's interrogation of Julia's house, of their past, her present -- and his inner demons.

Julia follows my gaze to the old wisteria against the wall, its clusters in every stage of life from emergence to fulness to decay, bees busying themselves around. How much of a garden is its sound, dead to the deaf? -- our footsteps on the gravel, the plop of water from that small fountain, birdsong and bee-buzz? How much of a conversation must be read in the eyes?

"I never really met them," Julia is saying. "James came over and arranged all that; I was going through a hard patch. It was a family who'd lived here for 20 years."

I nod. I do not trust myself to speak. I feel half insane. Twenty years. Let us measure it in stacks of photographs, in school fees, in shared meals, in the mellow delights of the connubial bed, in hard times shared, in the gnarledness of wisteria. Let us measure it in trust, too heavy to weigh an ounce.

"That lemony-jasmine fragrance that's so dizzying comes from these little white blossoms here. You'd hardly think it, would you?"

Julia blushes. "Aren't they lovely?" she asks, pointing now at the cream-coloured camellias. "They're called Jury's Yellow."

She frowns. "The thing about camellias, you know, is that when they're about to die, they won't tell you in time. If they lack water, they don't look unhappy for a while, and show you they're suffering; they just die."

"I'm going crazy. Why did I have to meet him? Couldn't you see what would happen?"

"Lunch is on the table, sweetie," says James Hansen, walking up. "Sorry to cut the tour short, but I'm starving."

Lunch passes in a blur. What do we talk about? That they don't usually have more than a couple of guests because it's difficult to follow a conversation. That celery has been banished because Julia can't hear anyone when she or they are crunching it. The hailstorm two weeks ago. Luke's music lessons. His least favourite subject at school. The state of Britain and the state of the States. The difference between American and German Steinways. Something about banking practices: I can't even remember what my question was, or why, having no interest in the matter, I asked it. Yes, lamb casserole. Yes, delicious. Oh, project finance? Couscous -- my favourite, yes.

Her husband is a perceptive man, a man of wit and substance, not my presumed image of an East Coast banker. I cannot see how he cannot see; but would he be so calm and friendly if he could? Rice pudding, bespattered with raisins. Mother bear, father bear and baby bear all attend to their porridge. I feel numb hatred for this decent man.

"Gran will be coming in a week. She makes an even better rice pudding," says Luke. "She puts in even more raisins."

What am I doing here? Is this not rash? Or was her true rashness then, when she came to the green room of the Wigmore? Am I a sort of algae on this rock?

"Well, on the same plane," I reply. "Our agent managed to get a sixth ticket after there was a cancellation."

"It's a great hall you'll be playing in," says James. "Julia says it's got the best acoustics in the world. We've been there several times. It sounded pretty good to me."

"We'll be playing in the smaller hall, darling, the Brahms-Saal," says Julia to her husband. "I don't think we've ever been there for a concert."

No, Julia, I have not made a scene. But why am I here? I sit to boil my heart for what I did? I am not far from hating you in this ...

The crescent curves across a busy road. Who can travel both at once? It is unravelling, things are flowering too late, or too early, and the bank has stepped in and taken possession. Luke will count 20 years, 40, 60 in rice-pudding raisins. Who must follow these prerogatives, these hidden histories of this chameleon word love? What has this man to do with Vienna? There at least we too have had a past. No stranger there could fully beat the bounds. He passed through, that was all, but the city belongs to us.

INTERVIEW: VIKRAM SETH
"Salman's not a rival"

Pulled out of the bathtub, Vikram Seth spoke long-distance from London to Assistant Editor Ashok Malik.

How was the story conceived?
Well, I was walking across Hyde Park in Kensington Gardens with a friend. It was a sort of grey, rainy day and I visualised in my mind's eye someone who was looking at the waters of the Serpentine very intensely. I could tell he was European or American. And I was just talking to myself, 'I've got a feeling that this person who I am visualising has something to do with not a short story, probably a novel I'm going to write.' I turned to my friend and said, 'I have this picture of a man but I have no idea about him. So do you?'

My friend who's a musician said, 'Well, he's a musician.'

'Supposing he is a musician, what instrument does he play?'

Because my friend's a violinist, he said, 'How about the violin?' I said, 'I'm not very fond of the violin, I prefer the cello.' But it got me thinking ...

Golden Gate in America, Suitable Boy in India, Equal Music in England and Europe. You just keep moving.
I know from an editor's point of view or a publisher's point of view it's easier to slot me into a particular niche. But I know that I'd be bored unless I wrote a book that in some senses was a challenge. And this might mean I vary the form by writing a poem or a play or a novel. Or set the stories in different countries. Or write in the first person as opposed to the third. Or in the present tense as opposed to the past. Or a very long novel as opposed to a short one.

This past year's been seen as some sort of a high noon of Indo-Anglian writing.
Has it?

Well at least in India, with The God of Small Things and all that.
It's just a bit of coincidence that three or four books should come out. People tend to see trends like 'high noon' and 'midnight' and so on.

So you don't see an Indo-Anglian literary school emerging?
No, I don't. They're such different writers. It is true in a general sense that people are much more confident of using English today. But remember that probably the greatest Indo-Anglian writer was writing in the 1930s and continues to write: R.K. Narayan.

Do you read contemporary Indian writing in English?
When I was writing A Suitable Boy I tried to avoid it (laughs). Actually, I don't read a lot of fiction. I do re-read fiction but I don't tend to read it.

There's this rivalry with Salman Rushdie that people are talking about since your books are coming out within a week of each other.
Neither Salman nor I have the least interest in rivalry but the coincidence is a remarkable one and I'd be rather disappointed if the journalists didn't try to create a bit of mischief between us (laughs).

Poetry, novel, poetic novel, travelogue, opera. Which realm of the written word have you left unexplored?
I haven't written a proper musical. A libretto, yes, but not a musical. I haven't written a straight stage play. I haven't written short stories, which I find quite difficult. I haven't written a novella, I haven't written a biography. And I certainly haven't, and probably won't, write an autobiography.