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rooms. It was meant for languid days.

My brother is my hero. I tagged along with him everywhere. He would put me on his bicycle and we'd cycle in the morning around the neighborhood for hours, hoping to get some of our friends out of their homes. When the afternoon sun got too harsh, we'd go back home for lunch. Ma would wait for us on the portico, sewing and swinging on the large swing. Her endless banter about playing in the sun was always her way of telling us that she missed us.

John would wink at me; take me by my hand into the house. While we had lunch Ma would ask whether we read the morning newspaper.

"Have you both read the morning newspaper? If you don't read the newspaper how will you know about the world outside? I want you to stay away from the market area".
John and I were confused and asked her why.

"The Hindu Muslim riots have started in Gujarat and it won't be long before we see some of it here".

After lunch we'd go up to our rooms and sleep blissfully in the summer heat. The ceiling fan would rotate with a squeaking noise. I always looked at it for several hours at a stretch, wondering if it will ever come crashing down. Watching the blades turn one after the other would lull me to sleep.

In the evening after a good glass of warm milk, Ma would let us play. John's friends would always come by in the evening to play cricket. The boys were all ten. But they played their game like the Club members, very dignified. I wasn't allowed to play since cricket was a gentleman's game' and since I was only seven I'd have to sit and watch them play. The bats, ball, pads, and wickets were all fashioned by them. Sticks from the backyard doubled for wickets, a rubber ball replaced the leather one, cardboard strips made knee pads and they managed to swindle a bat from the teacher at school.

The boys would toss a coin to decide who got to bat first. The game would usually begin around six in the evening when the sun went down and the street lamps flickered one after the other in succession and finally the entire street would be lit. The neighbors would pull up their chairs and watch us play. This always made the boys very conscious. The game took on the seriousness of the true gentlemen'.

One evening as we played on the street, people around us were running and the store shutters came flying down. Mothers and fathers came looking for their children and dragged them home. Ma came out to see what the commotion was about. As soon as she saw the empty streets, her

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