IT WAS EARLY one afternoon of the same summer.

Shorbojoya had just returned from the bathing steps and had started cooking lunch. After a while, she reached for the flower bowl next to her. Her fingers came back empty.

‘Arre! Where did the cumin go?’ she exclaimed. (The flower-bowl had long since been relegated to being a spice-holder, remaining a ‘flower bowl’ only in name.)

A smothered giggle floated in from the veranda outside.

‘Now, who could have taken my cumin?’ Shorbojoya called out, fixing narrowed eyes on the kitchen door. Sure enough, her son’s beautiful, mischievous face peeked in for a second, and withdrew with a giggle the moment he caught his mother looking.

‘I saw you! No point hiding any more, Opu—give the cumin back!’

Her son’s head merely peeked in for another swift look.

Shorbojoya knew her child well. When he was just a little baby—barely a year old, if that—she would wash his face in the evenings, draw a thick line of kohl around his large eyes, put a large kohl bindi on his forehead, and cover his head and ears with a cheap blue woollen hat with bobbles sewed on. Then she would carry him to the veranda to take in the evening air. To keep him entertained, she’d sing him nursery songs, drawing out the words excessively.

Come, bi-i-i-i-irdie with a swe-e-e-e-e-ping tail!

Play with my ba-a-a-a-be, play with him wel-l-l-l-l.

Her son always laughed, but his chief delight was in suddenly flashing her one of his famous toothless grins, then swiftly burying his little head in the crook of her back, where her neck and shoulders met.

‘Arre! Where is my baby?’ Shorbojoya would trill in mock surprise, much to the baby’s delight. The moment she turned and pulled back her head to reveal his face, he would glance at her, grin again, and promptly burrow into her chest. This back and forth would go on for several minutes, long after Shorbojoya’s neck had started aching from all the swinging. Her baby had been a new entrant to this world then, and having freshly discovered the joy of games, was unwilling to let go of them easily. Only once he was exhausted would he stop the hide-and-seek, then stare into an indeterminate distance from his mother’s lap. Relieved and suddenly overcome with affection for her adorable, crazy baby, Shorbojoya would lift his little face by putting her finger beneath his chin, and shower him with kisses.

‘You’ve learnt so many tricks already . . . my clever little darling! My golden child!’ she would croon. The beautiful golden child, however, took no notice of her praise. Even as his mother kissed him and crushed him to her chest, he would have found his way to dreamland. After a few moments of suspicious passiveness to her kisses, Shorbojoya would raise her head to look at her baby . . . and find him fast asleep.

‘Oh no!’ she would exclaim. ‘Will you look at this boy! I thought I’d feed him right after dusk, but he’s already a ball of sleepy clay!’

Though he had barely been eight months old then, and now he was a boy of eight, Shorbojoya knew all too well that if he thought she was participating in the game, he would keep up the hiding till sundown. It wasn’t like she couldn’t have found the cumin pouch herself, if only she had looked. Her innocent little boy hid things in such obvious places that even a blind man could find them. But she liked to let him have the illusion that he was a master at the hiding game—such an expert that even his own mother had to really struggle to uncover his stash.

So instead of getting up, she merely turned away from the wok and called out loudly, ‘Opu, if you don’t give the cumin back, I’m going to stop cooking right now. Then if you come to me asking for lunch, you’ll see what I do to you!’

There was another giggle from the courtyard. Then Opu ran in, face alight with mischief. He dropped the pouch in the flower bowl, and swiftly retreated behind his mother again. Shorbojoya turned back to her wok, relieved.

A minute later, someone behind her went, ‘Grow-w-w-w-w-w-w-l!’

Shorbojoya rolled her eyes. No indulgence, she reminded herself.

‘Growwwwwwl!’ said the fearsome monster again, in a slightly deeper voice.

Shorbojoya sighed and turned around.

Her son had pulled down the dusty old jute sack from the bamboo shelf, and had draped it around himself.

‘Opu! That thing hasn’t been shaken out in a year! It’s crawling with god knows what! Take it off!’

The sack monster got down on all fours and crawled forward.

‘No! Don’t come closer! Opu, my angel, my sweet good boy . . . here, look, I’m so scared. I’m really, really scared, all right? I’m shaking! Now take the sack off, Baba.’

The jute monster considered this plea for a moment.

‘Baba, if you touch me with that dirty sack on, all this food will go to waste. Good boy, darling boy—take that filthy thing off. And go see what your sister’s up to. That’s something to do, right? Lord knows how many mites have already crawled in your hair, you silly child . . .’

Opu finally took the sack off. The thing was used to sun-dry batches of red lentil poppers, so it had indeed attracted a fair number of ants and mites. Many of these were now hurriedly crawling up and down his limbs. His hair, eyebrows and face were coated with old lentil powder and house dust. But he was smiling. A big, goofy grin shone through the cobwebs and filth.

Shorbojoya wanted to crush him to her chest, like she used to when he was a baby. But if he wasn’t unclean earlier, he definitely was now. And the way their finances were, she couldn’t afford to waste food.

‘Go wash your