Pinching Tung Chin on his arm, Yiu Yi ran away. Her plump pink cheeks turned red. They were still laughing when they reached Mok Min’s shop. Mok Min’s shop was neither a trinket shop nor a grocery shop. It was not a hotel either. It was a mix of all these. The shop was another attraction of Makum. In the front was a small eatery. On the other side was a grocery store. Apart from daily provisions, here one could get Chinese food items. The shop also stocked items required by the Chinese community. Everything came from Hong Kong to Calcutta, and from there to Assam. Chinese people from the surrounding areas came to Mok Min’s shop for their requirements. It was another meeting place for them. Not only Chinese, there was hardly anyone in the neighbourhood who had not stepped into Mok Min’s shop.

Mok Min was fat and reserved. He was one of the richest Chinese men in the area. There were several other like Ho Yen Kee, Man Chung Ho, Ho Fuk, A. C. Chow, K. P. Lee and others who belonged to a higher social order. The labourers, fitters, carpenters and the shoe-makers constituted the lower and middle classes.

Mok Min’s shop was always crowded. Older Chinese men were seen sitting here, sipping tea, talking or playing Mahjong. Smoke from pipes, cigarettes, bidis always filled the rooms. Opium smokers often sat around watching the games or dozing in some corner.

When Pulok and his friends reached the shop, Mok Min was sitting quietly at the cash counter looking serious as usual. Yiu Yi stood outside and began to recite her shopping list in a bright and loud voice.

‘Wow, our little fairy knows the names of so many things!’ Pulok whispered in her ears.

‘Of course I do. I even know how to cook,’ Yiu Yi said with a smile.

‘Really?’

‘Yes, I’ll cook tomorrow. All of you must come.’

‘Surely we will,’ Robin said, and stroking her cheek. They went inside.

The old opium smokers were drinking tea indifferently. The place was filled with customers. C Hoi was reading the China Review out loud while a few others listened. Unlike the bundles of other newspapers that arrived from Calcutta at regular intervals, this one took weeks. There were not many people who could read or write Chinese. Although there were some who could speak Chinese, the majority of them were illiterate. The teachers of the Chinese school, C Hoi, Mok Min, A. C. Chow, Ho Chang Ho and a few others, knew the language. Some students in the school knew a little bit of Chinese, but their knowledge was not enough to read a newspaper.