IT WAS AROUND nine in the morning. Horihor’s son was sitting in the sunny courtyard with all his toys piled around him. These were: a discoloured wooden horse bought for four paise, a dented tin whistle, a toy pistol worth two paise, a few cowrie shells, a handful of inedible dried red berries, and his collection of lucky stone chips. The berries had been a gift from his sister, who had brought them home because they were so pretty. The stone chips were lucky because they always fell in the right quarter while playing hopscotch, and were thus cherished. The cowrie shells, however, had been quietly removed from his mother’s basket of Lokkhi Puja things, and thus Khoka was very careful about keeping them hidden from view.

This morning, the whistle had already had its turn. The horse, too, was lying on one side, like abandoned cattle in a rescue corral. He had just begun playing with the pistol when his sister, Durga, called from beneath the jackfruit tree.

‘Opu! O Opuuuu!’

At the sound of a human voice, Opu automatically shoved the cowries inside his tin toy box. Then, in a perfectly normal voice, he called back, ‘What is it, Didi?’

‘Shhh! Come here. Quickly!’

Opu climbed down the veranda and ran to his sister. Durga was now ten or eleven years old. She was not as fair-skinned as her brother, but their features were very similar—especially their large, expressive eyes. This morning, she was dressed in an unwashed sari and a few cheap glass bangles. A halo of thick, unoiled, curly hair surrounded her thin face. When he came close, Opu saw that she was holding a coconut-shell bowl tightly to her chest, and glancing warily around.

‘Is Ma back from the bathing steps yet?’ she asked, as soon as Opu reached her.

‘No, Didi.’

‘Good. I need some oil and salt.’ She tilted the bowl towards him to show him a heap of sliced green mangoes. ‘I’m going to pickle these.’

‘Mangoes! Where’d you get them?’

‘Shh! From below the Shindurkota mango tree in Potli’s garden. So, can you get the salt and oil?’

Opu hesitated. ‘Um, I haven’t bathed yet, Didi. My clothes are stale. Ma will beat me if I touch the oil pot in stale clothes.’

‘Oh, come on! She’ll never know. She’s gone to do the laundry at the pond. That’ll take her ages!’

Opu looked uncertain. On the one hand, there was his mother’s wrath. But on the other . . .

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘But give me the shell. I’ll pour the oil in that.’

Durga immediately handed him the shell bowl. ‘Now don’t spill the oil on the floor, or Ma will know!’ she whispered urgently. ‘You are such a clumsy boy!’

After a few minutes, the mangoes were ready. Durga doled out her brother’s share in a second coconut shell.

‘Are all those for you?’ her brother asked, eyeing her shell.

‘“Allll those?” I’ve only taken a few more!