The case at the end of the lane

For a child bound to a strict routine during term time, there’s a sense of freedom about summer afternoons, that lonely time of the day disowned by all. It meant being let off afternoon naps and the opportunity to slide down banisters unreprimanded. It meant the luxury of being able to chase crows off parapets and balconies without feeling silly when caught in the act. For a shy child, it meant, most of all, an opportunity to watch the world go by without being noticed myself.

It was the lull in the air that first caught my fancy. The streets were never so dead during any other vacation. The Durga Puja break had hordes of pandal-hoppers traipsing around, winters saw families out in the balcony, sharing oranges and basking in the benign sun. Now, I watched with fascination the near-empty streets shimmer in the blaze; cars rumbled past occasionally, a solitary hand-drawn rickshaw rattled past; sometimes, Tim, our neighbour’s black cocker spaniel would amble into their balcony, looking curiously at me, before propping himself up to peer down at the street to see what was keeping me busy.

What kept me busy, I wonder now, for I returned to the balcony every day as soon as I tired of my other antics. Was it the travelling salesmen and women, hawking their wares – everything from saris to incense sticks – in that stultifying heat? I would look at their worn-out, sweaty faces that fell every time someone turned them away and feel a stab of guilt. There was a lady who came every week with homemade snacks. Some days, my grandmother would buy packets of murir naru or chandrapuli to go with tea at 4 pm. Most times, she went back empty-handed. I remember offering her my red plastic Air India Maharajah piggybank one week, half-filled with five and 10 paise coins for a packet of yam chips I had been eyeing that afternoon. She had returned it and told me to take good care of it. But when she left, there was one unaccounted for packet of chips among the goodies bought that day. I still remember the scolding I received from my grandmother when I told her what I had done. She wanted to pay her the next week, but the woman would have none of it. I always ran indoors when she came to our house afterwards.

During the time of Gajan, pilgrims with baanks on their shoulders would go by in small groups, their chant of “bhole baba paar karega” lingering in the air long after they had disappeared from view. I always wondered how they managed to run barefeet on roads where the heat had begun to melt the tar. I knew the postman who came at 2 pm thrice a week and between 3.30 pm and 4 pm on the other days. When I would be older, it would be my job to collect the post, but for now, I watched as he pulled letters and bills out of his satchel and shoved them into letter-boxes. He never wore a uniform and never rode a bicycle like the postman in my friend’s locality did. I always wanted to ask him why, but somehow, I never managed to. He did greet me sometimes with a “chithi achhe (you have got mail)” or “aaj kichhu nei (nothing for you today)” before he moved on.

Unerringly, around 4.30 pm every day, the white-and-blue Kwality ice cream van rolled into the neighbourhood, the wiry man pushing the cart announcing his presence with shrill calls of “Ice cream, Koality ice cream.” His arrival generated quite a flutter. Curtains would be parted, windows would open partially and orders would flow thick and fast. It was always an orange lolly for me, and for my grandparents, “two-in-ones”. On days when they felt adventurous, they would try out the rainbow flavour that came in a plastic cone. Even now, I can’t pass up the lure of an “orange stick”.

Over time and with each passing summer vacation, my afternoons got livelier. By the time I was nine or 10, I had been inducted into the world of Enid Blyton and her precocious mystery-solving protagonists, particularly the Famous Five. I adored George and for the first time in my life, was glad that my hair was always cut short like a boy’s. I took lessons from the Five Find-Outers in observing people without letting them know, I learned how to squeeze lemons dry and ruin my grandfather’s fountain pens as I wrote out invisible letters, like the Secret Seven (Tip: you have to iron the letter to read what’s written).

The summer I turned 11, four of us – my best friend from school, another friend who lived a lane away, and my cousin, two years older than me – formed a “secret society”, dedicated to reading Blyton’s mysteries and Samaresh Basu’s stories about a boy-sleuth, Goyenda Gogol. We kept an eye out for anything shady going on in our neighbourhoods. We ratted to a local kaku about the boy who bullied strays, we commandeered children younger than us to report mysterious strangers to us. It was the summer when “day spends” were the rage. Every week, the four of us would be dropped at one of our houses around 11 am and picked up at 5 pm. We would listen to music, exchange books and eat Fun Munch chips with the Rs 10 that cost more than a week’s pocket money for all of us put together.

That year, though, we had important business to conduct. We had spotted our first case in Keyatala Road, two houses from where my best friend lived and we had only two weeks before school opened to find out why a portly middle-aged man would come every afternoon and stand under a tree, staring at the apartment. We took turns shadowing the man, sitting out on doorsteps, pretending to be busy, lurking behind trees in an elaborate charade of hide-and-seek. The next day, we would compare our notes and hazard guesses about his motive (Kidnapping topped the list since we had all been warned of chheledhora-s – that faceless fiend who preyed on children who strayed from home). Of course, no grown-ups were allowed entry into our meetings; in any case, you needed a password to make your way in.

I still believe we would have solved the mystery, if the man hadn’t found us first. One evening, our brainstorming session was interrupted by my friend’s red-faced mom. A man was at the door and he wanted to complain about our rudeness. Every day, when he went about his work, he found at least two of us lurking in corners and whispering as he passed by. He was a detective hired by the income tax office to collect information on a family in the apartment, and he was certain we were up to no good. Why were we out at that time of the day when the roads were desolate anyway? We needed strictness and we needed it now.

Needless to say, that was the last case that ever came our way that summer vacation or later.