The Additional Commissioner of the Bombay Municipal Corporation accepted the proposal from the British Chewing Gum Company. It was filed as an appendix to the administration report of the previous year and duly lost. Paan products—areca nuts, betel leaves and tobacco—a major export to China and to the Far East, were substantially taxed. Wholesaling of paan now required a license and that added to the revenues. There was no question about introducing any legislation to limit its consumption.

‘If the natives want to choke themselves to death with that dreaded paan, they may do so with my blessing, as long as they pay ten per cent in duties and leave their legacy in the able mouths of their children,’ the Additional Commissioner’s friend and an exporter of areca nuts, responded, in private.

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The two men who had given the table to the moneylender for safe keeping, returned to claim it. They were driven away.

‘The police are looking for the people from the cow protection society,’ the moneylender responded, as he closed the door on them.

They left, determined to return with their accomplices to give the moneylender a good thrashing. Who knows if the table is worth the price? Men with sticks don’t come cheap these days.

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Dear Dibakar,

I am surprised you did not respond to your father’s message. How could you not come for your grandfather’s funeral? As expected, Choti Masi promptly removed your grandfather’s ring and put it on her son’s finger. She said, crafty as she is, that our father always wanted the ring to be given to her son because he was his favourite grandson. I was quiet. If you were present, she would not have dared to say what she said. But you weren’t there. I told you this would happen. Do not forget that we live in a joint family. It is easy for anyone to substitute favourites of the dead after they have passed away. Today it is the ring, tomorrow it will be everything else.

Blessings always,

Ma

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That year, the paanwala lay bedridden. No letters were read out to him. As he closed his eyes, he wondered whether there was even a Darako. Was he present when Darako arrived all those decades ago? Or was he out for lunch? Was the story entirely imagined by Enumerator A during one of his post-lunch siestas? He wrestled with his doubts for most of the night, sleepless, harrowed, anxious. The door opened.

‘Is that you, Darako? Is that you?’

Darako, garbed in white, stood at the door. His face, radiant, warm; his hair, silver and blowing in the breeze; his halo, luminous. The moon was fuller, brighter. The clouds, in their many layers, were illuminated. It seemed like a bright passage had opened—a gateway to another world. Darako stood beside the paanwala’s bed, gently caressing his forehead.

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