The hours after school and the time when her papa came home always seemed too long to her. She had by now thought of many ways to make these hours seem shorter, to make them go by faster. Often, with practice, she would tweak these methods and shave off a few more of the slower seconds, like those when the setting sun crept past her window, throwing its yellow light right up to the radio shelf and staying there forever. At times like these she would rush out to the kitchen where her mother would be busy with dinner preparations. There she would pester her to let her knead the dough, which her little hands wouldn’t do very well and her mother would have to do it anyway. But when she returned to the room, the light would have reduced itself to a sliver.
Otherwise, she would play the radio at its highest volume and move from one room to another and then to the road outside to see till what point the sound carried. Quite often her mother would walk in and turn it down, making her do the routine all over again. She never did mind her mother’s intrusion as that meant she could spend some more time doing it all over again, and even add a few more minutes to it, by arguing with her mother about it.
She had friends, and she made sure they all left before her father came home. But she did use their presence to make the time pass by unnoticed. Often, by playing with them. But as she had observed that it was the least effective way as their games seemed to follow a pattern and had started mirroring the predictive passage of the sun by the radio shelf. So she would do it by picking up fights with them. Fights were better as there was no way of telling how long they would carry on for, or how intense they would get. So picking fights was one of her most effective ways. It was a good thing that at that age nobody took such things to heart and they would always return or call her over to do it all over again.
One mark on the slow moving seconds, one that she couldn’t turn away from or hide from like she could with the sunlight, was the sound from the mosque. The loud-speakers on the minarets called out to the faithful at a fixed time and she would know exactly where the sun would have reached and how much time it was for her papa to return. It spoiled it for her a bit, almost like a railway station announcing a two-hour delay to the passengers who were leaning over the platform thinking the train would pull in any moment. And while the sun wouldn’t follow her everywhere she went, this sound certainly did. In her earlier days she would try and muffle out the sound, and at times she would succeed too. But the act of sitting in a room with pillows over her ear made the time drag even more slowly so she let it be. And it was around this time that she learnt the power of humming. Using one sound to counter the other.
Her wait wasn’t just a series of ploys to make her skip over the hours. They were also spent in a quiet prayer and a silent hope that her dad’s cart wouldn’t be empty when he returned.
Papa, some three kilometers away sandwiched between a tea-seller and a road-side florist, would hope and pray for the exact opposite.
Every night when he went to sleep, he would look outside the window and smile at the dark. For the darkness would still be there when he woke up. Like someone watching over him as he slept. And sure enough, when he woke up without an alarm or a rooster telling him to, it would be there. The pitch black of the sky that had yet to wake up. But also the peace and the quiet. In the dark he would boil potatoes, grind the ingredients for the chutney and knead the batter for the samosas that he would then pile onto his cart and drag it all the way to that corner. That corner by the road where the office buildings stood surrounding it. And by noon, and for an hour after that, when the offices spilled their employees for some time in the sun, he would do brisk business. Samosas went down well with the tea that the man standing next to him sold, and the weather in these parts was either cold, wet or pleasant. He clubbed them all under pleasant. The wet days meant he had to run around a bit carrying orders that were shouted from the offices around the chowk, but the increase in demand made it worth his while.
The afternoon commotion over, he would start preparing for the home-bound traffic. While the rain or the cold often bolstered demand from the afternoon crowd, it was the guilt that did it for his piping hot supplies. The guilt of those who spent more time at work and with friends than they should. Though he was no economist or a student of human behavior, he could tell that those who left for home early and on time made for bad customers. But as the shadows lengthened, his sales graph followed suit. For those who reached home late to their families, knew that a paper bag stained with the oil of the samosas inside could change the questions that would greet them, or at least change the tone they would be asked in.
Over the years he had come to know almost everyone in these government offices that were set in a semi-circle around this small chowk that stood on the right side of a hill. From here, when the season was at its peak, tourists would head towards the waterfall that the locals thought was over-rated and never bothered to visit. But he never paid extra attention to these one-time customers, for he knew that his regulars mattered more to him.
His regulars too had a strange way of getting irregular. Even before they knew it themselves, with years of looking at their moods and dressing and even their gait, he could tell if they would be carrying home a snack for the family or not when the day ended. Like the old man who sat the closest to the office blocks and polished the shoes of those going inside. He only recognised people by their shoes as all day he just looked at their feet to see if they would bring him business.
He too had learned how to look for signs that would tell him how the day would go for him. The biggest one was seeing more than a few of them dressed up. In a town this size where everyone knew everybody else, that was a sign that someone’s son or daughter was getting married and almost everyone was invited. Well-dressed men and women meant that when the day ended, they would head to the venue straight from here, and meet their families there. Which meant no packed samosas that evening.
Another sign was most of them turning up late and in a somber mood. Usually it meant a death in the town and again, lower than usual sales.
But today, things seemed fine. The lunch crowd was good. It was the first week of the month when the office-goers could still reach into their pockets and feel a few spare notes or coins with relish. The temperatures were down and the sound and sight of the samosas sizzling in a pan of oil was all they needed to reach out for another one.
Towards the evening, the temperatures only dipped further so that even the ones who left on time picked up a few for the kids and parents and spouse. As the evening progressed, he saw the lights getting switched on in the few offices that were still occupied. He counted the few men who left for the corner wine-shop to spend an hour over drinks, and added a little more flour to the dough he had been kneading. He peeled a few more potatoes and added a little more oil to the pan on the stove.
By the time the samosas were ready and spread on the tray, it was pretty late and the men had yet not returned. Which was strange, as it was mid-week and there was a nip in the air and you seldom had people stay out that late in these circumstances.
The chaiwalla had left long back. His sales largely happened at lunch. The florist had left too. He never had much to do here except lend a very aesthetic look to this chowk. Alone, he waited for the men to return, hoping these unusually long hours would only push their guilt higher.
Back home, his daughter had run out of ways to kill the time waiting for him to return with his cart and a few samosas that he didn’t manage to sell. Sometimes he came back beaming and would smile at his wife, then look at her and ask her about her school and even play with her a little. That meant he had sold off all his wares and there was nothing left for her.
On other days he didn’t look all that happy. And the sight made his daughter burst into a smile. For that usually meant there were some samosas left unsold and she could eat to her heart’s fill.
The men who had gone drinking finally came back really late. You could tell they hadn’t drunk much, but were carrying food packets they got packed from the dhaba by the wine-shop. To his dismay, instead of walking to his cart and from there to their homes, they went back to their office instead. He had still not learnt a way to tell that their auditor from the head-office was coming the next day and they would have to stay all night to finish their work.
He walked home in a very foul mood, dragging his cart that was weighed down by a dozen or so samosas and the effect they were having on him.
In another half an hour, his daughter would see that as a sign that a feast was in store for her.