Everyone liked that. ‘This is how a vendor should be,’ they said about him. He also made sure no other egg vendor entered this area. Even when he was in Tholur, his thoughts were here.

As far back as Kumaresan could remember, Bhai Anna had been the one buying their eggs. The rock was a great place to raise chickens. They roamed around the entire stretch, laying at least four or five eggs every day. Marayi would store the eggs safely in a salt jar, and by the time Bhai Anna arrived two or three days later, fifteen or twenty eggs would have been collected. He paid four annas per egg. If they had twenty eggs, they could get a lump sum of five rupees. Asking her to fetch a large vessel filled with water, Bhai Anna would drop the eggs one by one into it. He would set aside the eggs that floated right to the top, saying, ‘These eggs have gone soft, so cook them today.’ The others he would put away safely in his basket.

Marayi became angry once in a while: ‘What is this, Bhai Anna? Are we the kind who would cheat you? You test the eggs the way people scratch and test gold.’

But Bhai Anna was not one to be softened by such talk. Nor did he ever get angry. He simply reasoned with her: ‘Marayamma, you are a good person. But does the egg care about that? Even if it were a day too old, it would float. I have to take care of my business, don’t I?’

One night, when he was lying down outside, Marayi came to him. ‘Bhai Anna, you go to all sorts of places. Why don’t you help my son find some work? He stays here as though confined within a small measuring cup.’

It had been two years since Kumaresan had completed his eleventh standard. The year he finished school was when a twelfth standard was introduced, but he missed out on it. He always believed that he could have spent another year in school had he been a year younger. Even though he had failed twice, he liked going to school. But when he finished his eleventh standard, Marayi said, ‘Enough with this education.’ She was not ready to send her only son away for higher studies elsewhere. Besides, she did not have the means to do it.

Kumaresan spent two years in the village doing odd jobs, and sharing some of Marayi’s work. But there was nothing he could do on the rock that could bring in more money. Since the goats didn’t need more than one person to herd them, he sometimes went with the day labourers to do wage work—digging irrigation channels, drawing water from wells . . . that kind of work. But then someone said to Marayi, ‘Those men are not good company. Why do you let him mix with men from other castes? When we offer them water, we pour it without touching them. Yet here is your son, sitting on his haunches and socializing with them, rubbing shoulders with them, and roaming around with them. What can I say? You’ll have to find a girl for him from one of their families now. After all, who among us would pledge our daughters in marriage to him?’