Although it was only three o’clock when school finished, it was almost dark outside and the wind had set the trees in motion. Govinda ran from the school compound with the other children. In the lane the shopkeepers busily battled the torrential rain. Covers made from bamboo, timber, tin, canvas, plastic, all manner of scrap, were erected. When all the school children had left, Govinda turned back into the gate. He ran across the playground over the place where the elephant had been cremated, into the school building, and up the stairs, to their home.

He ran to his room and changed his clothes. In the kitchen, Mumbles was talking to his mother in low muffled tones. Govinda dressed in a shirt and trousers and walked past the room with the dining table and rattling French doors, into the kitchen. He sat in the kitchen with his mother and Mumbles where the wind disturbed the latches, shook the glass and banged the doors. White lightning flashed at the windows. A peal of thunder tore through the sky and rain lashed the lane below as Mumbles combined flour, salt and sugar in a large mixing bowl to make roti.

Govinda jumped at a thunderclap.

‘You are acting like a baby,’ said Mumbles.

‘Shut up,’ said Gitanjali. ‘The boy is the master of the house. Remember that.’

The phone rang and Govinda moved to answer it.

‘Don’t answer the phone,’ his mother said. ‘The lightning might strike you down.’ Over the sound of the rain a loudspeaker crackled. ‘Allahu Akbar’, a muezzin commenced his call to prayer but was drowned out by thunder. A small, hollow, clay statue of Kali fell from her hook on the wall to the ground. A spice rack followed. Govinda thought the clatter sounded like demons.

‘The sound of thunder is Agni hurling his thunderbolts to protect us and our houses,’ his mother said.

His father came home as night approached. He entered the house with a wet umbrella and raincoat, leaving a trail of water behind him. His hair was plastered to one side.

‘That’s a big shower,’ his mother said when she greeted him in the hallway. She threw a towel over his head.

After vigorously rubbing himself Sunil Seth shook his arms, legs and hair and headed to their bedroom. As he changed into dry clothes, he screamed, ‘Somebody close the windows and doors and unplug all the electrical appliances before this house gets flooded.’ Gitanjali and Govinda ran frantically closing the windows that had been blown open by the strong wind, and the French doors.

‘This doesn’t look good,’ Sunil Seth said.

‘I want to run out there,’ Gitanjali said idly.