A Journal of Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya

“Grace, you discuss the deal with Mr
Nath. In the meanwhile I’ll go and give
milk to Puffy. Poor Puffy, today we couldn’t
spare an egg for her.”
“Mr Nath, when you come to live here
you must take care of Puffy and Tom.
They are like brother and sister. Ask your
wife once in a while to give her an egg
whipped in milk. Puffy is also very fond
of pudding while Tom likes Marie biscuits.
I wish we could take them along with
us but there’s nothing we can do about
it. Today Puffy drank off my share of
milk. These animals can’t understand that
times have changed. Hello, Puff, hello,
Tom! Come, come. Look a friend has come.”
Two fat cats appeared from nowhere
and began staring at me. ”Look, how clever
and obedient they are, Mr Nath,’ Ruby
made caressing sounds. Grace suddenly
remembered something.
“Mr Nath, once we were taken for
a ride. You know our Henry.
We were really proud of him,” Grace
said. “One day we realised to our surprise
that Henry was only a dog to look at.
In fact it was a bitch. A terrible loss
indeed. We named her Henrietta. What
else could we do?”
Ruby went in laughing.
Grace called after her, “Ruby can we
get some tea?”
Ruby replied from inside the room,
“But it’s going to be black tea. And there’s
no sugar.”
Grace suddenly turned grave, adjusted
her glasses over her nose and brushed
down her skirt. “Well, let’s talk business
now,” she said.
“How much do you want for this kothi?”
“Some customers are willing to pay
six lakhs. But you may pay five. ’’
“Five lakhs?”
“Is it too much? Can you pay four
lakhs? Two lakhs before we leave for England
and you may pay two lakhs later on. O.K.?”
I took a long sigh.
“Now what’s the problem?”
“It’s quite a large amount and it will
take me time to arrange for it.” ‘‘Mr Nath,
there’s one Mr Dutt, a businessman. At
one time he was also interested in our
house. He was willing to pay five lakhs
but we refused. We learnt that he was
not honest. He evaded income-tax. We
want clean money. We know you are honest,
aren’t you? You must be. A scholar has
to be honest. When you come to live
here we shall leave all the books that
you see in this rack for you. We won’t
charge you anything for them. It will be
a friendly gift for you. Only we won’t
part with the gold embossed Bible. Ruby
will like to take it with her. I hope you
won’t mind it.”
“Miss Grace, can you show me your
house documents-your will and all that?
118 :: January-March 2012