But this meant I never ventured out of the house before seven or seven thirty in the evening. Like shards of a coconut smashed against a rock, all my old friends had scattered away to other towns after school. The pressures of earning a livelihood had dragged them away in all directions. I was alone. But how long could I stay trapped in the house? When it was dark enough for me not to be recognized on the streets, I’d wrap a shawl around my neck and head out west, the cool wind soothing my face. I always headed to Joseph’s laundry shop.

For a long time now, I had dwelt on Asan’s stories of the tamarind tree. One question in particular fascinated me—how did the tamarind pond transform into the tamarind-tree junction?

When my family left my father’s ancestral village, taking everything we owned to this town where my mother was born, it was at the tamarind-tree junction that we first arrived. I will always remember the first time I saw it. Oh, the junction was the town’s heart, the crowning glory of the market! Day and night, it buzzed with life, crowds thronging the streets at all times. It was as if hundreds of thousands of beehives had been disturbed all at once and now there was a steady humming buzz in the air, a million racing pulses. On these streets, children automatically clutched their elders’ hands more firmly, and even adults felt comforted by this move.

And I? When I first stepped off the bus, I was overcome. Here we were, in this busy town, having come from a little village where every car drew gawking crowds. The bright lights of this junction, in a neat sequence here, a little disorderly there, stretching as far as the eye could see, the flashy storefronts, the waves of crowds, and the vehicles that crawled bumper to bumper—and the sounds! The hustle and bustle of the crowds and the immense sound the tamarind tree made when it was rocked by the roaring wind. I was awed.