THAT DAY AFTER lunch, Opu had gone to the fisherman’s neighbourhood to play with cowrie shells. It was after two in the afternoon, and the sun was at its harshest. His first stop was at Tinkori fisherman’s house. Tinkori’s son Bonka was under their guava tree, sharpening a piece of split bamboo.

‘Oi, want to come play cowries?’ Opu asked.

Bonka very much wanted to, but he was scheduled to go on the boat. His father would be furious if he disappeared to play cowries. Reluctantly, he refused.

Next, Opu went by Ramchoron fisherman’s house. Ramchoron was sitting on his outer veranda, smoking tobacco.

‘Is Hridoy at home?’ Opu asked him.

‘What’d you want with Hridoy, Thakur?’ Ramchoron replied gruffly. ‘Cowries, is it? No, Hride isn’t at home. Be about your way!’

Walking about under the midday sun had begun to tan Opu’s fair face red. He went to a few more houses in the neighbourhood, but found no one free to play with him. He was on the brink of giving up, when he struck gold under the tamarind tree near Baburam Parui’s house. A large group of boys had gathered under the tree, and they were playing cowries. Opu’s face lit up at the sight. Most of the boys were from fishermen families, but there was also Potu, a young boy from the brahmin colony. Opu didn’t know Potu that well for they lived quite far from each other and were from different age groups. Indeed, he had only met Potu when he had started going to Proshonno Gurumoshai’s school. Potu had been the boy sitting in the back row, silently chewing the edge of a palmyra leaf. Still, as the only other outsider in this neighbourhood, Opu walked up to Potu.

‘How many cowries?’ he asked.

Potu untucked his cowrie pouch from his waistband. ‘Seventeen cowries. Seven of them gold-veined. And if I lose these, I can get more.’

Then he pointed proudly to his pouch. It was a small bag woven with bright yarn, and one of Potu’s most treasured possessions. ‘Do you like this, Opuda? It can hold eighty cowries—a full pon!’

The games began. Potu was losing at first, but soon he started winning. As he had discovered a few days back, his aim in the game of cowries was becoming nearly perfect. It was confidence in his new skill along with the dream of winning a whole pon of cowries that had brought him this far out of his own neighbourhood. Following the rules of the game, he would aim at a big cowrie and strike. His face lit up every time he made a shell twirl out of its square. He carefully stashed every cowrie he won into his pouch. Every so often, he would open up the pouch and peer into it, eagerly counting how many more he would have to win to fill it up.

After this went on for a while, a few of the local boys suddenly called