A Gift Of Chappals ( part 2 )

How he loved the sound of his own voice!

Meena and Mridu exchanged looks.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Mridu demanded.

“Huh! I’m telling you this cat is descended...

from the Egyptian cat-god... no, goddess! Bastet!

Ya! That’s it!”

“So?”

“Well, one of the descendants of that cat-goddess

was a stowaway in one of the Pallava ships, and his

descendant was the Mahabalipuram Rishi-Cat,

whose descendant is —” Ravi flourished his twig at

Mahendran “— M.P. Poonai here... whoop EEK!” he

shrieked, very pleased with himself.

Mahendran looked up, alarmed. He had just

been sharpening his claws on the edge of the

coconut shell. But worse than Ravi’s awful

whoop EEK was a ‘Kreech...!’ from the window.

What a weird sound! If Mridu was startled,

M.P. Poonai was frightened out of his wits.

Hair standing on end, he bounced up and

scurried towards a bamboo tray of red chillies

that had been set out to dry. Trying to hide

beneath it, he tipped a few chillies over himself.

“Mi-a-aw!” he howled miserably.

The ‘kreeching’ went on and on. “What’s that

noise?” said Mridu.

“That’s Lalli learning to play the violin,”

grunted Ravi.

“She’ll never learn a thing. The music-

master just goes on playing like a train

whizzing on and on, while Lalli’s all the time

derailing! Going completely off track!”

Mridu crept up to the window. Lalli was sitting a

little distance away, awkwardly holding her violin

and bowstring, her elbows jutting out and her eyes

glazed with concentration. In front of her, with most

of his back to the window, was the bony figure of

the music-master. He had a mostly bald head with

a fringe of oiled black hair falling around his ears

and an old-fashioned tuft. A gold chain gleamed

around his leathery neck, and a diamond ring

glittered on his hand as it glided up and down the

stem of the violin. A large foot stuck out from beneath

his gold-bordered veshti edge, and he was beating

time on the floor with the scrawny big toe.

He played a few notes. Lalli stumbled behind

him on her violin, which looked quite helpless

and unhappy in her hands. What a difference!

The music-master’s notes seemed to float up and

settle perfectly into the invisible tracks of the

melody. It was like the wheels of a train fitting

smoothly into the rails and whizzing along, as Ravi

said. Mridu stared at that huge, beringed hand

moving effortlessly up the violin’s stem, making

lovely music.

Squawk! There was Lalli derailing again!

“Amma!” came a wail from the gate. “Amma-

oh!”

“Ravi, send that beggar away!” cried his mother

with Tapi. “He has been coming here every day for

the past week, and it’s time he found another house

to beg from!” Paati explained to Tapi.

Mridu and Meena followed Ravi out. The

beggar was already in the garden, making himself

quite at home. He had spread his upper cloth

under the neem tree, and was leaning against its

trunk, apparently prepared to take a little snooze

while he waited for the alms to appear. “Go away!”

said Ravi sternly. “My Paati says it’s time you

found another house to beg from

from the back verandah, where she was chatting

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***