LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

don’t laugh, da. He has probably had to save two months’ pocket money to buy a ball!’

      Peals of mirth erupted, and the boy who cracked the joke slapped the others on the back as they chortled.

      Kummi Paati had seen enough. She stepped forward, all four feet ten inches of her, and glared at the group of boys. The laughter died almost instantly, and one or two of the boys even had the grace to look ashamed.

      ‘Good evening,’ Kummi Paati said.

      She got muttered greetings from most of the boys in response. Then she turned to Ravi.

      ‘Ravi, if you are done with your purchases, perhaps you could hold my umbrella as we walk back to the colony? I find it so tiring in the sun.’

      Ravi nodded, paid for the ball quickly, and left the Mart with Kummi Paati. As they moved out of the shade of the awning, Ravi sighed in relief.

      ‘I do not like those boys,’ Kummi Paati said. ‘They are not of good character, I think. They spend their parents’ money and they think it makes them better than other people. No,’ she shook her head, ‘no, I do not like those boys.’

      ‘Neither do I, Kummi Paati. That’s why we have to win the match.’

      They were back inside the colony now, and near the playground. Kummi Paati watched as Ravi ran towards his friends, holding the ball high up above his head. His teammates erupted in cheers.

      ‘Hey, throw to me! Throw to me!’ Babu said.

      Ravi threw the ball to Babu, who examined it then tossed it back and forth between his hands.

      ‘This is a good ball!’ Babu said.

      Ravi grinned, as the other boys began to clamour for their turn with the ball.

      Kummi Paati left them to their game and walked over to the hose. She was watching the children play out of the corner of her eye as she took the hose down from its hook and turned on the tap.

      As she made her way around the playground, she kept her eye on the boys as they started their practice. She had watched a lot of cricket in her time – on the television, in the street and in playgrounds – and she knew what made for a good player.

      Babu was bowling to one of his team members. He bowled reasonably well, she thought. Not well enough to justify the batsman only managing to hit one of the six balls that he had just bowled to him, but he was quite good. For the next half-hour, she watched the others play as well. Ravi kept the wicket and did a reasonable job. There were, she thought, perhaps five good players out of eleven. Babu was trying to spread the best fielders around, to get as much coverage as he could. But no matter what he did, there were patches where the balls would get through for a four, usually batted to where some girls were playing badminton. Then one of the boys would run over and collect the ball, apologising to the girls for having disrupted their game.

      When this had happened for the fifth or sixth time in as many minutes, one of the girls, Priya, picked up the ball and turned around. She was throwing the ball up in the air with one hand and then catching it, giving the ball barely a glance as she did so.

      ‘If you boys are going to disrupt our game, we might as well join you,’ she said.

      Her friends chimed in.

      ‘Yes, why don’t you give us a go on the pitch?’

      ‘You girls don’t even know how to play cricket!’ Babu said. ‘We don’t have time now to teach you. Maybe another time.’

      Priya looked annoyed at this.

      ‘Tomorrow,’ she said, still tossing the ball in the air.

      ‘Fine, fine, we’ll see,’ said Babu impatiently.

      Priya shrugged at this and threw the ball straight towards the stumps. They fell down in a heap and her friends cheered.

      ‘Now look what you’ve done! I have to set up the stump again!’ Babu said.

      ‘Maybe I do know a thing or two about cricket though, yeah?’ Priya said. Then she turned her back on the boys, picked up her badminton racket, and went back to her game with her friends.

      Kummi Paati continued to watch the children play as she finished her watering. They were still playing when she finished, gathered the hose and put it back on its hook, and walked slowly back to her flat. Boys and girls alike shouted across the playground, an exuberant sound expressing all the enjoyment of youth.

      She wished she’d had more time to enjoy hers.

      She had been perhaps seven years old when she had first realised things were starting to change. She had a brother, one year older than her, and a sister who was a year younger. The other two children in the house were the two daughters her father had with her stepmother, and they were babies.

      Kummi used to play with her brother on the street, together with all the other children from the neighbourhood. And then her stepmother had started to call for her to help in the kitchen. Not every day, but every other day.

      ‘You must learn all of these things if you want to be married some day,’ her stepmother would say. ‘Otherwise who will marry a girl who cannot cook?’

      Kummi didn’t really care. She wanted to play with her brother and her friends. But she knew she must do as she was told and so, on the days when her stepmother called her into the kitchen, she went quietly and did her duty.

      By the time she was eight, she did not have to be called. As soon as the school day was over, she would eat, have a rest, and then in the evening, she and her stepmother would cook. Her stepmother was a good cook, and she taught Kummi well. Kummi had thought herself indifferent to cooking as a hobby until her granddaughters, Nina and Alisha, had introduced her to cooking shows the previous year.

      ‘Paati,’ Nina had said, ‘have you watched MasterChef ?’

      ‘No. What is it?’

      Alisha replied, cutting her sister off, as she often did.

      ‘It’s a television show, Paati, a competition. To be the best cook. I think you’d really like it.’

      ‘Would you like to watch it with us?’ Nina asked. She held out her hand to Kummi Paati, inviting her to sit next to them.

      Kummi Paati had sat down to watch the show, largely because she didn’t want to dampen the enthusiasm of her young granddaughter. But fifteen minutes in, she found herself interested. So many things that they did had fancy names, but she did those same things in her kitchen every day! She watched as the young cooks – or chefs, as they were called, which seemed to her another fancy name that had no real purpose – made silly mistakes. Mistakes for which she would have been hit with a wooden spoon when she was eight or nine, and by the standards of her day, deservedly so. At the end of the hour, she leaned back on the sofa and saw that her granddaughters were grinning.

      ‘Are there more episodes?’ Kummi Paati asked.

       * * *

      The next evening, at around 3.45 pm, Kummi Paati made herself two dosais – crispy rice and lentil pancakes – and ate them with leftover sambhar. At around 4 pm, her husband came home early, as she had requested. She made dosai for him, Shakuntala and the twins and then made three cups of coffee for the adults.

      It was just after 4.30 when they all made it downstairs to the playground. Somu Thatha went to the hose and prepared to water the plants. The girls went to the swings and started playing.

      Kummi Paati looked around. Sure enough, the young boys were there, practising their game. She watched them for a while and then left the playground.

      Kummi Paati began a slow walk around the colony. She had a destination in mind; she just didn’t want to call attention to herself by heading straight there. She passed the time of day with her neighbours as she walked, many of whom asked why she wasn’t watering the plants that evening. After she explained for the fifth

Скачать книгу