There was a wide path outside that spanned the entire length of the row of eight rooms. There were some Indian beech trees here and there, in the umbrella-like spread of whose branches Kumaresan found solace. Aside from an allowance for food and other daily expenses, he got a monthly salary of three hundred rupees. He could save the entire amount. Bhai Anna had also given him additional work to do: he had to take the eggs by bus to wherever they needed to go. Since Bhai Anna considered Kumaresan a responsible boy, he had agreed to pay him fifty rupees a month for this additional work.

In the beginning, Kumaresan did not know anything about operating a soda shop. A man by the name of Periyasami came to help him learn the ropes. He was a friendly man of Kumaresan’s age, and was from Bommusamuthiram, which was in the same district as Kumaresan’s village. The first thing he taught Kumaresan was how to carefully carry the bottles in his hand. Then, for an entire week, Kumaresan was deputed to wash the bottles. Throughout, Periyasami never stopped talking.

‘In this row of houses,’ he prattled excitedly, ‘there are seven or eight girls. Three of them are lovely to look at. You can gaze at them all day long. I have asked Soda Shop Bhai several times to let me work here, but he thinks there is so little to do here that it is enough to let novices handle this place.’ When Kumaresan said to him, ‘Why don’t you find a girl here and get married?’ he replied, ‘Ayyo! Looking is all I can manage. In fact, I am scared to do even that. And if I do marry a girl here, I can never go back to my village. I’ll have to sever all ties with the people of my caste, and live here. If I dare to go back, they will poison me. Or beat me to death.’ Fear clenched Periyasami’s throat as he said these words, but that did not stop him from resuming his favourite subject: the girls next door.

During his first week, Kumaresan did not know who all lived in the rooms next to him. He always walked with his head bowed. Even back in his village, he had never looked young girls in the eye. Since he lived in a secluded area with his mother, in a house built atop the rock, he did not have many opportunities to meet girls. He only saw them when there was a festival in the temple. At such moments, he was astounded to realize that there were so many girls in his village. But he was too shy to speak to any of them alone. And if he did manage to speak to one, the entire village would know about it the very next minute.

Periyasami and Kumaresan would arrange the bottles in crates and in boxes made of metal wires before setting out on their bicycles. Periyasami would lead the way while Kumaresan followed, lugging two dozen bottles of coloured cold drinks. The idea was to familiarize Kumaresan with the bunk shops he would supply the bottles to as well as the streets he would have to navigate. They did this twice a day, in the morning and the evening. For the rest of the day, Kumaresan stayed cooped up inside the room. A cot stood in a corner of his room, woven with thick ropes which were ripped in places, the frayed strands dangling. During the day, he would drag the cot outside under the shade of the Indian beech tree and recline on it. But he was unable to fall asleep. A person should learn to do nothing, he would think to himself. One day, as he lay tossing and turning on the cot under the tree, his eyes began to close slightly.