In time, once the Betel Merchants’ Association was formed, the shopkeepers whom Khader turned away for ridiculous reasons started bringing Dhamu the shopkeeper with them for support. Deep down, Khader was scared of Dhamu. He knew Dhamu was a tough man, so he wanted to be on his good side.

Years later, I painstakingly gathered accounts of the history of enmity between Dhamu and Khader. In those days, I was overcome with disappointment that India had gained independence without giving me an opportunity to play any part in it. Perhaps as a distraction from that, I joined my friends in being curious about everything concerning Dhamu, our local shopkeeper and freedom fighter. Uninvited, I inserted myself in the various groups that discussed the scandal in the many corners of the bazaar and listened attentively. I didn’t know enough then to be bothered by the looks of disdain the older folks gave me—all I wanted was to find out information my friends didn’t know, so that I could be the first to tell them. How I studied the expressions of the older men when they discussed these matters! I did my best to let those expressions animate my face too. I appropriated their opinions and turns of phrase and uttered them as my own. For some reason, it was very important to me to be seen as a responsible person, as someone who was deeply concerned about declining times.

When I sat in my back garden and retold all that I had learned to my sisters, I exaggerated events without even being conscious of it. If I was describing episodes of daring action, I embellished them to keep them exciting. I found great satisfaction in narrating things the way I wished them to have occurred or had imagined them to have happened. Even now, as I tell you about the life and death of the tamarind tree, I cannot claim to have completely freed myself from this tendency. Trying to fit our imagination to the realities of the world is an impossible task. All we can do is find some satisfaction in forcing the world to submit to our imagination instead. It seems that we are forever destined to carve our feet to fit our shoes.

But so what? After all, this wretchedness goes by the name of art these days, and so all is immediately forgiven. Besides, we all have learned to pretend to believe in the things we read at least while we are reading them, so that we may derive pleasure from them and dismiss everything else as lies. So no real harm done here.