The paper was folded many times over, and opening it took some time. The chill in the air had numbed their fingers and it only made the work more difficult. Even inside the gloves, the fingers were icy cold, and the gloves were not helping either. But the clue had to be looked at for them to know where the laddoos were. It was the promise of those fist-sized balls of goodness tucked with all their favourite ingredients and packed tight by their mother’s gentle hands that kept them going. The folded paper and the clues within were not their mother’s doing though. Left to her, she would have hidden the laddoos in a place from where only she could give them what she felt were the right amount on any given day. Left to them, they would finish the laddoos all in a day. But there was also a father who found every single opportunity to turn everything into a lesson in logic, or maths, or science, or any other subject that they couldn’t even think of. Before leaving for work that day, the father had packed four laddoos — two for both of them — in a brown paper bag, and hidden them somewhere, the clues to which were in this folded paper that he had hidden in yet another place and whispered a clue in their ears separately, that they had to piece together and spend all of the morning to find. This was no way to spend their winter vacations they thought. They should be in bed, having the laddoos while reading their comic books. But here they were, out of their beds, rolled up in layers of wool and with a paper that was proving as difficult to open as the clue inside. It may be easier to find the tin of laddoos that the father had taken the four out of. But their mother was no less good at hiding them in plain sight. They knew it was one of those many tin boxes on the shelf above. Among the many pulses and rice and flour and oil and the many things that she conjured their favourite dishes from. Reaching that shelf and peeping into each tin box wasn’t just difficult, it was likely to get them caught because of the smell that escaped every time they opened the wrong boxes. The brothers suspected that some contents in those tin boxes were not really ingredients but sirens that screamed every time an intruder came close to them. Only the sirens were picked up by the nose, but had an effect that was no different from one that a loud, shrieking one would have on their mother, and to what she did to them after she caught them on a chair reaching up for the tins and boxes.
Rimen looked to see if their mother was still at their neighbour’s house. She was. So he quickly reached out to the electricity switch board and turned the heater on. The coil on the heater sparked a little, putting the dust and the bits of hair that often fell on it, to fire. The coil then glowed softly at first and then to its fiery red. Rijen looked at their neighbour’s house in fear, for if their mother saw them turning on the heater, they may be told to return to their rooms and the hunt for the laddoos would be over. If the father never let go of an opportunity to expand their minds, the mother was clear on making them the hardy rugged children she said all children should be. Heaters were for boiling water and cooking when the gas cylinder froze up. Not for warming your hands and feet. It only made your skin more likely to freeze up when you stepped out. But they were getting desperate and they also knew that the heater would have to be switched off soon because it took some time reverting to its dormant state. But that minute of warmth did wonders to their fingers and the paper’s folds and they were soon looking at the clue inside. The heater had been switched off and their mother was still talking to the neighbour. But that did little to put them at ease, because the code inside was in a shape and form that they feared the most.
It was a maths equation. One that Rijen hadn’t yet been taught at school and one that Rimen had learnt a year back and had already forgotten. But how could solving a math equation point out a location? Rijen was feeling cheated, for he could not be expected to solve it. And Rimen was feeling cheated because he had cleared that class and there was no reason for him to solve it again. But there it was, and they had no other way of finding if it would help till they solved it.
“Naris Bhaiya?” Rijen asked with hope.
Rimen’s eyes lit up. Naris Bhaiya lived close by, and was many years their senior at school. He was also a maths tutor because of which the two avoided meeting him on roads, or even when they went to their house for the delicacies that his mother made on Eid. But today it was important they went there. So putting on another layer of wool over their clothes, the brothers rushed out in the cold air, the icy winds hugging them the minute they did, and making them run as fast as they could to the other house.
Naris bhaiya was sitting next to heater, and seeing the boys invited them to sit beside it. The warmth was a big relief, but they wanted more. Thrusting the paper in his hands, the boys asked if he could solve it for them. Naris looked at the equation and smiled, and said that he couldn’t. And then seeing the alarm on the brothers’ faces, he said that he could, however, teach them how to.
The world it seemed was not done with teaching them something or the other. But having come so close to finding the treats, they didn’t want to turn back now. So picking up two sheets of paper and two pencils, Naris gave them tips and tricks and taught them how such equations were to be solved and in the next hour or so, after making many mistakes and then correcting them, the two brothers finally had the same answer to the question.
42 root 3
Naris smiled and patted the two on the back. It was the right answer, he said, and he was very happy the way they had applied themselves to the problem.
Disappointed, the boys stood up to leave. Correct answers and encouragement for solving a math equation were not what they had come to Naris bhaiya for. They needed a clue to find where the laddoos were. 42 root 3 was not going to help.
They had almost reached the door when Naris called out their names, and asked them if they had forgotten something.
Looking back, they saw him holding a brown paper bag with something round inside, something that left oily stains on the paper.
“Your laddoos”, Naris Bhaiya said.
Back at home, the two brothers sat buried in their razais and took small bites of the treats as they read their comic books. The laddoos never tasted as sweet as they did then.