Valli had a fine rosy complexion. Even though it had dulled somewhat over the years from being out in the sun, he still had his glow. Thick, combed hair. Collarless shirt. Rubber-tire-soled sandals that looked like small rafts when he took them off. The pockmarks on his face were ten years old, but they looked so fresh and deep that you would think the pox goddess had just recently blessed him.

Since they had announced the auction was at three in the afternoon, people could reasonably expect it to start only at four. Accordingly, Valli hurried to make it to the junction by four thirty. It was four fifty when he finally arrived, however. His helper placed the stool he had carried under the tamarind tree. Valli sat. He looked around. There were some scattered crowds, but no one seemed to be the type to bid in an auction. This auction had been happening every year for eleven years, and a paltry gathering like this had never been seen before. In the past years, the vendors used to throng to watch the auction! And where was that special reporter from the Travancore Nesan who covered the event every year without fail, writing about it in great detail and with some creative liberties?

Valli had been in charge of the auction every year, so he knew everyone who showed up. Now, in the relatively empty tamarind tree-junction, he reminisced about some of the most dramatic moments from last year . . .

The most important bidders who came to the auction every year were Vadaseri Brammananda Moopanar, Kottary Abdul Ali Sahib, and Keezhatteru Aiyamperumal Konar. If he wasn’t at the maharaja’s palace in Thiruvananthapuram, Thazhakudy Moothapillai would definitely come to the auction as well.

Moothapillai’s arrival usually stirred a notable excitement among the crowd. The bidding wars between him and Abdul Ali Sahib were legendary, and all the vendors in the bazaar would crowd around to witness it.

Usually, Moothapillai arrived from Thazhakudy in a cart drawn by two bullocks. He was from a long line of rich landowners. He even leased the lands that belonged to the king and the temple at Vadaseri. As a result, he wielded an enormous influence in our town. He was very simple in his appearance, since he relished his reputation for simplicity. He only wore a freshly laundered, single-layered veshti. On his shoulders, a thin Vadaseri towel, also freshly laundered. And, to wipe his nose after a pinch of snuff, a black handkerchief kept at the ready at his waist.

Moothapillai had developed a persistent case of eczema on both his legs, and he hated it when the ointment rubbed off on the edge of the veshti and became coated with dust from the streets. So he always folded up his dhoti and held it well above his knees.