The Opium Eater and Other Stories [a potpourri set primarily in India]

7. Grandma

This book hasn't found many readers (yet?) on Wattpad :-(. I'm guessing one reason is because it's literary fiction, not commercial. But it has found at least one: Kimayaa :-)!

This story is dedicated to her for her support of this book. Thank u, Ankita - I really appreciate it :-), as I'm sure would my father!

Ankita is an author as well & has 3 books on Wattpad. Pls check them out :-)!

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Aziz Manzil, old and grey, standing by the railway tunnel, was our house. I say 'was' because it is no longer ours. After the partition of India, most of my people left the country and went to Pakistan. Those who had stayed behind followed them in two years' time, and our property was alienated by the government of India.

The passage to our house lay through a narrow, paved lane. The lane, which served as a playground for the children of the neighbourhood, was flanked by two high walls that cut off the sun's rays and kept the lane in constant shade and half-light. Twenty yards down the alley-way was an old archway; this was the entrance to our house. Along one side of the lane ran an open drain that carried black, smelly water. Once a week the municipal sweeper came on his sanitary mission, and all the children gathered round and watched him run forwards and backwards with his broom dipped in the water. This was his idea of a cleaning job. It only made the drain look dirtier than before. The dark mud that lay on the bottom would be churned up and the foul smell that always hung in the air would be intensified.

But we did not mind these things. The smell did not bother us and the muddy water was all right as far as we were concerned. A hundred times a day our ball would roll into the drain, and we retrieved it with our fingers without the least hesitation. If a grownup person happened to be going by at that time, we waited for him to pass, or fished out the ball with our bare toes. We did not expect anyone to find fault with that.

The lamp-lighter came at sundown to light the single lamp in the lane, carrying a slender ladder on his shoulder and a lantern in his hand. We children never stopped to watch him at his work as we did the sweeper, because he came at dusk; and the lane, quite dark by that time, held unknown terrors for us. At the far end of the lane was an empty house with broken walls and caved-in roofs. Heaps of broken bricks lay in its courtyard; and in the middle of the rubble stood a magnificent plum tree, which looked fantastic in that setting in the daytime, but sinister at night.

It was generally believed that spirits and djinns haunted ruins, and the wrecked house in our lane was no exception. Every fifteen days or so, and always on a Thursday night, some thoughtful member of our community would light a little lamp-a tiny saucer of oil with a floating wick in it-in honour of the spiritual creatures, and to keep them in good humour. Also an anna's worth of sweetmeats was placed by the lamp. This was dinner for the spirits. They fed on its smell.

Sometimes, on Friday morning, we would see bits of sweetmeat in a niche of the ruin; and in the tiny saucer would be a black stain left by the burnt-out wick. We used to fight among ourselves for every plum that dropped from the tree, but none of us had the courage to touch the left-overs of the djinns. They might get offended and then sure disaster would follow. There was at least one victim of their wrath, or so we believed. He was a boy of fourteen, much older than the boys of our age group. His name was Irshad. It was said that as a child he would sometimes steal the sweetmeats offered up to the djinns. This angered them. So one summer's night, when it was warm and he was sleeping on the roof, they lifted him from his bed and flung him down. He was picked up unconscious, and with a broken leg. His leg was now all crumpled, and he went on crutches.