By Mitra Samal
“If you don’t put it to good use, you will not be allowed to use it at all.” My grandpa said in a stern voice, waving the magnifying glass on top of my eight-year-old head.
I had misused it twice in the past week and had already received a scolding from my grandma. To reprimand me and prevent any further mishaps, my grandpa decided to place it in the most unreachable top corner of the tall cupboard, where my height, even with the help of any furniture, would sadly not land me.
Apparently, my maternal grandpa, an eminent scientist in Odisha, wanted his firstborn granddaughter (me) to become a renowned physics teacher someday, while his grandson, my elder cousin, would become an engineer. After taking the liberty of deciding our careers—much to our discontent, as I wanted to be a lady police officer, influenced by my childhood soap Udaan[1], and my cousin dreamed of becoming a bus conductor (though I’m not sure of the source of his inspiration)— grandpa decided to teach us physics.
Of all the things he demonstrated in his lab, the one that made the strongest impression on me was how the lens of a magnifying glass, when focused on something, can set it on fire. My cousin, however, remained docile and completely uninterested in either the lens or the fire. He would roll the round Marie Gold biscuits on the floor, imagining them to be the tires of a bus, a bus for which he dreamed of being the conductor someday. My curiosity led me to do bizarre experiments with the lens. As long as I smouldered unused items, it went unnoticed, but eventually, I landed myself in trouble.
Mischief was my domain, not Tipu Bhai’s. Though my cousin was named Tipu, like the valiant Tipu Sultan, he would always retreat like a wet cat. His usual line was, “Do whatever you want, but don’t pull me into this, Nitu!”
Once, I asked him, “Tipu bhai, why do you want to be a bus conductor and not a driver?”
He simply said, “Driving is too much work. I don’t think I can drive such a huge bus. It looks like a gigantic beast. I would rather be a bus conductor.”
I knew bhai was that starry-eyed kid who loved watching the bus conductor almost falling out of the door, the wind playing in his hair, and his whistle piercing the air with a shrill sound. That must have seemed thrilling enough to spark bhai’s otherwise sorry imagination.
My grandma didn’t have many stringent parenting rules. Although she occasionally hollered at me when I was being naughty, most of the time, she pampered us with delectable food and gifts. I remember her sparing coins for us to buy chocolates.
Bhai and I would walk to the nearest market and buy lollipops in our favourite colours. People often asked if we were siblings, and I would reply, “We are cousins.” Sometimes, they would smile or say, “You both look so alike,” before resuming their stroll toward the stalls.
Bhai was too shy to even look at them, so I was usually the one to answer their curious questions when they saw two kids wandering around the market late in the afternoon.
*
We spent our school summer vacations at our grandparents’ house in Cuttack, about a fifty-minute bus ride from Bhubaneswar, where we lived with our parents. My grandpa’s house in Cuttack had a courtyard full of mango trees. That afternoon, my grandma and Malati, our seventeen-year-old maid, were busy collecting mangoes from the trees, most of them raw, to make mango pickles and chutney. The garden was covered with dried mango leaves, and my grandma had asked Malati to sweep them all to the far end and set them on fire.
I had two raw mangoes and a magnifying glass in the pockets of my overalls as I followed my grandma and Malati everywhere.
“Wait here, Nitu, while Malati climbs the tree to get more mangoes,” Grandma said, pointing toward the garden’s boundary wall before walking away.
Tipu bhai was fast asleep inside the house, and Grandpa was away at one of his meetings. I watched from a distance as Malati cautiously climbed one branch after another, tossing mangoes down for my grandma to collect. After a few minutes, I got bored standing in one place, watching Malati and Grandma work as a team while I stood feeling abandoned. I noticed a pile of dried leaves beside me and remembered the magnifying glass in my pocket—if I focused it just right, I could set anything on fire. So, I focused the blazing afternoon sun’s rays onto the leaves.
To this day, my grandma insists there wasn’t any kerosene on the leaves, while I still try to convince her that Malati must have spilled some, intending to sweep them to the other corner later. The leaves caught fire, and the flames quickly rose toward the branches of the tree, spreading fast. My grandma let out a scream and ran toward me, while Malati rushed in and together, they pulled me away from the fire. One of the burning branches fell onto the roof of the hut beside our house, setting it ablaze. The hut belonged to a woman named Foola, meaning flower, and it was her kirana[2] store.
Amidst the chaos, we didn’t realise that Grandpa had just arrived. Foola rushed out of the store in panic, and Grandpa quickly ran into the house to call the fire brigade. The fire brigade arrived ten minutes later and began pouring water on the Kirana store. By then, some neighbours, along with Malati, had already thrown buckets of water on the fire. The roof suffered some damage, but the store itself wasn’t affected much, thanks to the timely intervention. All the while, I stood there helplessly, engulfed by guilt.
In the evening, my grandma sat me down and asked if I knew how the fire had started. Her formidable figure loomed over my tiny one, her hands clasped behind her back, the serious green light from her eyes meeting my brown glaze.
“I didn’t do anything, nothing at all!” I blurted out but then grandma is an expert in studying body language and hearing the unspoken words.
“Look I know you had something to do about it. A fire doesn’t start out of the blue. Better confess it and I will not give you any harsh punishment.” Grandma said with her brows raised.
“It must have been completely accidental. I don’t remember much about how. I think there was kerosene in it.”
“There wasn’t any kerosene. I am positive.” This argument about the oil, as I mentioned, never really ended. I did my best to stay defensive without revealing any details.
Then, my grandma brought her right hand in front of my face, holding the magnifying glass. “I found this in your overalls. Any explanations about it? I may not be well educated but I had seen your grandpa demonstrating what it can do.”
That was it—I was caught red-handed. I knew any further argument would only spark more anger and trouble, so I bowed my head and kept my eyes on my toes. Suddenly, the idea of stealing my grandma’s nail polish and painting my toes red crossed my mind, but I quickly brushed it off.
My grandma pointed her index finger at me and said, “No lollipops for a week.”
“That’s too long!” I complained almost teary eyed.
“You argue more, I extend more. Your brother can have them though.”
I felt like Mowgli in The Jungle Book when he was abducted by the monkeys. However, Grandma paid no heed to my misery.
*
Foola came the next morning and stood on the veranda, sobbing. I could hear her telling my grandparents that although the fire brigade had extinguished the fire, the water had seeped into the sacks of rice and pulses, ruining almost a quarter of her grains.
“Babu, please pay for the damage. I am a widow, there is no one to look after me, with all this ruin I will be at a huge loss.” Foola said to my grandpa.
Grandpa knew that the fire had started in our courtyard, though he hadn’t bothered to find out the intricacies involved, and Grandma hadn’t cared to explain. She thought that barring me from eating lollipops for a while would be enough to teach me a lesson. I had felt guilty, then angry, and now I felt very sorry for Foola.
“How much do you think would be enough for managing the damage?” My grandpa asked Foola.
“I won’t quote more, Babu. I swear to God a hundred or two hundred rupees should be enough.” Foola answered with tears rolling down her cheeks.
My grandpa must have known that Foola was being honest. He exchanged a glance with my grandma, and she nodded in approval. I then saw him hand her two hundred-rupee notes. Grandma encouraged her to come again if she needed further help and the matter was somewhat settled.
Four days had passed without lollipops, and there were three more to go. I was craving them—their sweet and tangy taste, the scent that used to fill my nostrils. They always looked like my favourite coloured bulbs, capable of switching my mood to the happiest level every time I licked them. Furthermore, Bhai had committed the heinous crime of eating my favourite cola-flavoured lollipop the day before.
The guilt and desolation that had entangled me slowly began to be replaced by a sense of rage. I waited for my grandma to go to the bathroom, then reached under the mattress on her bed, where she kept the almirah keys. They were still there—two of them, one for the main door and the other for the locker inside.
Beside her jewellery box lay my magnifying glass. Her favourite green saree, the one she wore to the evening pujas, hung neatly on a hanger. When you’re a child and consumed by anger, reason hardly stands a chance. Without thinking, I focused the lens of the magnifying glass on the saree until it burned a hole through the fabric.
That was how, within a single week, I made two miserable mistakes. When Grandma found out, all hell broke loose in the house, followed by Grandpa reprimanding me.
*
When the anger and rage subsided, realisation dawned on me—guilt, more guilt, and an overwhelming sense of remorse, though I still occasionally craved lollipops. Grandma didn’t pamper me, and grandpa buried himself in his books, not once inviting me to his physics lab. Bhai was busy staring at every bus that passed by the house, lost in daydreams. Malati kept herself occupied with household chores and rarely engaged in outdoor activities. The mango trees had started bearing more fruit, some of them beginning to ripen. The sun was less scorching, though a hot loo blew occasionally, and a couple more weeks had passed. Soon, summer vacation would be over, and my father’d take me back home. He wouldn’t really be proud of my behaviour.
One afternoon it was hotter than usual. The sun blazed like a fiery orb, unleashing an army of relentless heat waves upon us. The air was thick with swirling dust. The garden hand pump and the water faucets in the house spewed only hot water. I sat on an armchair on the porch, with a mildly gloomy face, unperturbed by the heat.
Just then, a middle-aged woman in a saree, with a cloth bag slung over her shoulder, arrived at the gate. She looked fragile, as if the sun had drained all her energy. In a weak voice, she called out to me, “Girl, fetch me a glass of water, please.”
I rushed to open the gate and led her in by the arm. After making sure she was seated comfortably in the shade, I gave her the hand fan I wasn’t using and went inside to get some water.
“Grandma, come along. There is a woman at the door,” I said as I headed out with a jug full of water.
The woman gulped down the water, relaxed a bit, and wiped the sweat from her brow with the end of her saree. I sat close, fanning her, and asked, “Are you okay now?”
“I am, girl, I am. You saved my life!” The woman said with her hand on her chest.
“Do you want more water?” Grandma had just come out of the door.
“No sister. I am okay now. Have to get going.” The woman said, and with her hand patting my head, added, “She saved my life.”
She opened her cloth bag and gave my grandma a handful of ripe guavas. When my grandma offered to pay her, she gently refused, insisting they were a gift. She had traveled from a nearby village and often came to Cuttack to sell fruits and vegetables in the market. That afternoon, the ruthless sun had nearly exhausted her as she made her way to the bus stand. Desperate for some shade and water, she had somehow managed to reach our house.
After she left, grandma told me that good deeds bring blessings.
“You were very kind today,” she said with a smile. It had been a long time since she had given me such a radiant smile.
“And when you do wrong, Satan hovers nearby and doesn’t give you many chances to rectify your mistakes. This time, you did good. I will ask your grandpa to give you the magnifying glass back.”
She then handed me a few coins. “You can have lollipops tomorrow, but make sure to share some with Bhai.”
That was the last time grandma had been so strict, and I never got into such mischief again. After all, who would want to risk getting caught by Satan!
[1] Flight, a 2014 soap on child labour
[2] Convenience or grocery store
Mitra Samal is a writer and IT Consultant with a passion for both Literature and Technology. Her works including poems, stories, essays, and reviews have been published in The Hooghly Review, Muse India, Borderless Journal, Madras Courier, The Chakkar, and Kitaab among others. She is also an avid reader and a Toastmaster.
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