THIS IS HOW the thing happened.

Opu had finished the handwriting exercise his father had set him. He put away the palmyra leaf scripts for Horihor’s inspection and went inside the house to look for his sister.

Durga was in a corner of the inner courtyard, bullied by her mother into performing the punyipukur ritual. A small square hole had been dug beneath the papaya tree and filled with water to signify the ‘Pond of Virtue’. The chickpeas and green peas that she had scattered around it had begun to sprout. Durga was standing over this ‘pond’ and flying through the rites as quickly as she dared. When she saw Opu come in, she lowered her voice to whisper.

‘Don’t go anywhere. I just have the montro left . . . then I’ll take you to a special place.’

‘Which place, Didi?’

‘You’ll see when we get there. Now, one minute . . .’

She turned back to her pond of virtue, folded her palms and chanted the ‘mantra’, which was really just a verse.

Pond of Virtue, garland of flower,

Who worships at this noon hour?

I, Leelabotee, that is who.

Lucky sister of brothers,

A woman of virtue.

Opu was watching the rites with interest. At the end of his sister’s recitation, he snickered. ‘“A woman of virtue”, oooh!’

Durga grinned in embarrassment. ‘Shush! Go wait outside. This is a girls’ thing, what are you doing here anyway?’

‘Hee hee! “Lucky sister of brothers, a woman of virtue.” Virtuuuuuue! Hehehe!’

‘Oi! You shut up, or I’ll tell Ma. You’ll see the beating you get! Now scoot!’

After a minute, she joined her brother outside.

‘Let’s go. Bhoda’s mother said that the pond at the fort is full of ripe water chestnuts!’

The ‘fort’ was merely a large house that had belonged to the Mojumdars—the oldest residents of this whole area. They had dug a broad moat around the house to protect it from humans and animals. The family had long since died out, and their house had broken down completely. Even the moat had largely been filled in, and the area was now a messy woodland with a bamboo grove. Only one part of the moat still had water, but it was pretty deep water. This was called the Fort Pond, even though it was neither a pond, nor an actual fort.

The Mojumdar property had been at what was now the north of the village. These days it could only be accessed through an ancient orchard of mango and jackfruit trees. Brother and sister ran along the narrow old path through these orchards. When they reached the pond, however, they saw that all the chestnuts along the sides had already been picked clean. The remaining ones were right in the middle of the pond, where the water was the deepest.

‘What shall we do, Didi?’

‘Hmm . . . can you find a piece of bamboo? A longish one. Then we can haul those clusters in.’

While