Home by Manju Kapur

his studies as a further excuse for wielding her mighty chappal. ‘If anything happens, my name will be mud. Where do you roam about all day? Don’t you care about the money spent on your school, failing every year?’ she shouted.
    Within anybody’s earshot she complained vociferously. ‘The boy is growing wild. If he turns out like his father, don’t blame me. I have done all I can,’ she would say, virtue trembling through her body.
    Vicky, hunched on his bed, pretended to study. Last year the Principal had passed him in tacit recognition of the liberal discounts given him by the cloth shop. His aunts reminded him of this daily.
    ‘Let him be, bahu,’ observed the grandmother. ‘It is not as though he is going to be a teacher. Your father-in-law also didn’t finish school.’
    ‘In this day and age society expects you to be high-school pass,’ Sona pointed out righteously. ‘When he fails I am blamed. His uncle thinks I can put brains into his head.’
    Vicky hated school, hated studying. The pattern had been set for failure, and he saw no point in struggling against it. When forced to stay inside he roamed restlessly through the four rooms, driving Sona mad. No one else seemed to mind him, but he crept under her skin, irritating her to the point where she wished him dead or at the very least out of the house.
    Years in a joint family had given her appropriate communication training and she approached the matter indirectly, when she was serving the men their meals. This was a good and public time and she used it to show how distracted she was by the baby. Things had changed, and it behoved the family to notice.
    Lala Banwari Lal did notice. When Sona remarked for the umpteenth time that poor Vicky was performing miserably in school, and it was time his own father showed interest, he decided that some changes in the boy’s routine were necessary.
    He knew women could make things difficult. Besides, God had blessed Sona with a second pregnancy, and tranquillity in the house was essential. He knew he had to look after Vicky till he stood on his feet; if those feet could only stand in the shop, so be it. Early in life he would learn you had to work for everything you got. This was not a bad thing for someone in Vicky’s circumstances. His wife concurred.
    Vicky would come straight to the shop from school, have lunch, and make himself useful. He would start him with a full day on Sundays and two till five on weekdays.
    That Sunday Vicky left the house with the men to start his career. It was the end of July and the lane leading to Ajmal Khan Road was churned with mud wet from yesterday’s rain. The sabzi wallahs sat on either side under awnings of plastic, vegetables arranged on sacking. The vivid pale greens and bright red of cabbages, tomatoes, lauki, tinda, tori shone against the dull pavement. Vicky stepped through the mud carefully in imitation of his grandfather and uncles. Now he was part of the earning section of the family. His status would change: he would be looked up to, and given the respect that was given them. His meagre chest swelled at the thought of his future power. He would show everybody.
    Two assistants were already waiting when they arrived. Yashpal took out the key, and motioned one of the boys to open the heavy padlock and crank the shutter up.
    Inside, Yashpal and Banwari Lal took off their shoes, and arranged themselves on the white sheet-covered mattresses. Pyare Lal disappeared into the downstairs section, built after his marriage, gesturing Vicky to follow.
    If Vicky had any fantasies of unfolding saris at a leisurely pace and draping them around himself to display to customers, he had to get rid of them with each step into the narrow, brightly lit, stuffy basement. He had to stand behind the counter all day, taking out rolls of cloth the assistant gestured to, serving the assistant, not even his uncle. The latter was remote, sitting on a comfortable swivel chair behind a