'I can't see myself in an office. And leaving mom and her business alone was
not an option.'
I had opened up more than I ever had to anyone in my life. This wasn't right, I
chided myself. I mentally repeated the four reasons and poked the pile of books.
'More than me, you need to be friends with these books,' I said and asked for
the bill.
'Coming,' a girl responded as Ishaan rang the bell of our supplier's home. We
had come to purchase new bats and get old ones repaired.
Saira, supplier Pandit-ji's eighteen-year-old daughter, opened the door.
'Papa is getting dressed, you can wait in the garage,' she said, handing us the
key to Pandit-ji's warehouse store. We went to the garage and sat on wooden
stools. Ish dumped the bats for repair on the floor.
The Pandit Sports Goods Suppliers was located in Ellis Bridge. The owner,
Giriraj Pandit, had his one-room house right next to it. Until five years ago, he
owned a large bat factory in Kashmir. That was before he was kicked out of his
hometown by militants who gave him the choice of saving his neck or his factory.
Today be felt blessed being a small supplier in Ahmedabad with his family still
alive.
'Kashmiris are so fair complexioned,' I said to make innocuous conversation.
'You like her,' Ish grinned.
Are you nuts?'
'Fair-complexioned, eh?' Ish began to laugh.
'Govind bhai, my best customer,' Pandit-ji said as he came into the warehouse,
fresh after a bath. He offered us green almonds. It is nice to be a buyer in
business. Everybody welcomes you.
'We need six bats, and these need repairs,' I said.
'Take a dozen Govind bhai,' he said and opened a wooden trunk, the India-
Australia series is coming, demand will be good.'
'Not in the old city,' I said.
He opened the wooden trunk and took out a bat wrapped in plastic. He opened
the bat. It smelled of fresh willow. Sometimes hat makers used artificial fragrance
to make new bats smell good, hut Pandit-ji was the real deal.
Ish examined the bat. He went to the box and checked the other bats for cracks
and chips.
'The best of the lot for you Govind bhai,' Pandit-ji smiled heartily.
'How much,' I said.
'Three hundred.'
'Joking?'
'Never,' he swore.
'Two hundred fifty,' I said, 'last and final.'
'Govind bhai, it is a bit tough right now. My cousin's family has arrived from
Kashmir, they've lost everything. I have five more mouths to feed until he finds a
job and place.'
'They are all living in that room?' Ish was curious.
'What to do? He had a bungalow in Srinagar and a fifty-year. old almond
business. Now, see what times have come to, kicked out of our own homes,'
Pandit-ji sighed and took out the bats for repair from the gunny bag.