The ladies, however, had no time to talk about the war. Mei Lin was surreptitiously looking at Lee Chang’s pregnant wife Wai Kwan. In a room, the youngsters were playing Ludo while the older ones listened to music from a radiogram. Tung Chin’s mother was busy cooking. Pulok’s mother, and Tung Chin’s sister-in-law – Madhabi’s mother, were helping her. Despite being a Chinese household, most of the customs observed were Assamese because Tung Chin’s mother, Pramila Gogoi, was Assamese. She was from Sivasagar. She first met the young Ho Min Fuk when she had gone to an open-air cinema in the tea garden adjacent to her village. At that time, she had just completed her matriculation. She was a courageous girl and married Ho Min Fuk despite all opposition. They had been together for thirty-two years. She was now the headmistress of an Assamese lower primary school near Makum. All three of her sons were married and working. Her eldest daughter-in-law Madhabi’s father was Chinese and her mother was from the tea garden workers’ community. Her second daughter-in-law’s name was Wenling, a Chinese woman from Dibrugarh. The youngest, Xonpahi, was an Assamese girl from Sivasagar. Of her two daughters, one was married and the other was engaged to a Chinese boy who worked in a tea garden near Siliguri in north Bengal. Once she was wedded, Pramila’s responsibilities would be over. She bowed before God a thousand times for giving her a home full of peace and happiness.

Although dinner was going to be Chinese today, the daughters-in-law had made some Assamese sweets to serve with tea. Wenling brought these on a plate and placed it in front of Mei Lin.

‘Tell me how you like it. The rice cakes kept breaking in the beginning. Now I’ve got the hang of it. But I hardly get the time with five children around,’ she laughed.

‘It’s very nice. Maa has taught me how to make them too.’

The young women got busy with small talk. Tung Chin’s youngest sister Mei Fung was also lost in her own dreams. She was to be married on 10 December. The boy came to meet Mei Fung after their marriage was fixed. They were in constant touch with each other through letters. Actually, she had written a pile of letters but had not posted them. She had planned to give them to him after their wedding, as a gift.

In the sitting room the men were listening to the radio.