Santhi, the rumour monger, went to great lengths to make herself available the following morning. She raised early from bed to prepare breakfast for the family and perform her maternal duties for the family. Her thosai today was awkwardly asymmetrical, and the coconut chutney must have had double servings of salt and tamarind. Oh, what the heck! It was going to be an exciting day, and she was not going to give it up for anything. One day with salty gravy must be okay; she thought, after all, she, without fail, had provided 364 days of crispy sizzling steaming hot thosai with accompaniments.

Quickly as she packed off her husband and her two kids to school with him, she hurried to Lakshmi’s abode. It was already 10 am by the time she reaches there.

“I heard he only reaches there at about 11 am,” said Santhi. “That gives us time to have tea and catch up with stories.”

A disinterested Lakshmi obliged. Her mind was filled with thoughts of Thamby manning a porridge stall while entertaining his blue collar clientele. The customers of the marketplace must bely most from the port and are not the best role models for any child to form an opinion on how adulthood should be. Vocalising in their crude lingo and double speak innuendoes would sway Thamby from his true calling in life to salvage the family from the rut of debts and self-made ruins.

So immersed was Lakshmi in her mental soliloquy that she had mixed salt into her tea instead of the usual sugar! Santhi, yearning to meet her mid-morning craving of foamy milk tea, almost threw out the concoction when she tasted it.

“Amma!” she almost cried when her taste buds froze, and the saline impregnated tea filled her palate. At the same thought, in the anticipation of the excitement of the day, she just politely put it away so as not to delay their planned ambush of the porridge stall in the market!

***

At the marketplace, like a prancing tiger, Lakshmi and Santhi slowly prowled the vicinity of the sweet wheat grain stall. The stall was packed. Oversized men slurping their meals, standing around the giant wheat broth stall gave cover to whoever was manning it. After threading herself through the crowd, much to her utter disgust, Lakshmi, in full view, saw Thamby busily serving the hungry men with their bowls of nourishment. Her jaw dropped. Scurrying through the utensils, the bowls and the utensils, Lakshmi grabbed her prized pint-sized possession by the protruding bat ear and dragged her all the way home with occasional lambasting by the earful.

That night was hell for the Muthu household. Loud decibels of screaming and yelling pierced the neighbourhood. This type of emotional display has been the norm in their home of late, Thamby thought. It became a regular feature of a once famous and respectable family of the Pearl of the Orient. What a sad story! How he wished, it all disappeared just like that? Perhaps, now Santhi is having a whale of a time as she is happily entertaining her family as she tucks them all to bed. The neighbourhood, by now must be quite accustomed to the wailing of Lakshmi and the haughty rebuttal by Muthu, the once promising heir of Periyathamby Kallar.

***

Next Chapter: Flight By Night