Asan would sit in front of these ruins, and we’d arrange ourselves in a semicircle around him. Then one of us would humbly offer Asan a packet we’d purchased on the way and kept ready. Two stacks of Ittamozhi betel leaf, a dozen or so betel nuts, and two wads of Jaffna’s Number One tobacco. Asan would chew the betel, spit it out, and glance around. Then, finally, with some unnecessary theatrics and grunts, he’d clear away the tobacco juice lingering in his throat. This meant that a story was about to start.

But Asan’s stories never began in that well-worn style of our grandmothers. He never said: “Long, long ago, in a faraway land, there was a king . . .” Oh no. Asan had mastered the art of storytelling. He knew all its tricks and techniques. After staring intently at a nearby plant, he would say: “Does any of you know what plant that is?”

We’d peer at it, frowning.

“You don’t know, do you? Hmph! I can tell from those stupid looks on your faces. All right. Crush two leaves in the palms of your hands and take a sniff. What does it smell like? Doesn’t it smell the way new clothes stuffed in a coir basket for a long time do?”

We’d gape, awestruck. What a perfect description!

“You see,” Asan said, leaning closer, “it was with this leaf that the wretched woman killed her husband. How could a woman bring herself to do such a thing? But then she had dared to desire another man. It wasn’t that her husband was disabled. Or hunchbacked. Or blind. Or that he had found another woman on the side. Every harvest, give or take, he got no less than a hundred sacks of rice. He had enough to eat and entertain; every day at least a hundred banana leaves were thrown into the trash in his backyard. If you let his cattle out, it’d take half an hour to vacate the cowshed. One day he went to the Vadaseri market to find some bullocks for his cart, and he got two bullocks as sturdy as Arabian horses. He also bought some flowers for that damned woman to wear on her head. He thought she was offering him some milk to drink, that’s why he drank it. He vomited blood twice.” Asan leaned back. “End of story.”

This was how Asan set up his stories. Then he’d start chewing on betel leaves again. He was like a conjurer who offered a teaser, promising to show something thoroughly beyond our expectations, before he laid out his paraphernalia and got ready for the trick.