16

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Ten Whole Words

I AM HURRYING down the stairs, happy to be away from my bad-tempered uncle. I’m almost all the way to the ground floor when I hear someone huffing and puffing up the stairwell.

It is Chinna Abdul Sahib of 2B. He’s carrying a big box. He’s breathing heavily. He’s rounding the corner and now we are face to face.

Oh, no! The box slips.

I grab at it double-quick so it doesn’t fall. It is heavy. I brace myself so I can hold it up. It would be terrible if I let it fall. From his face, I am sure it contains something very precious. Possibly a drum.

Chinna Abdul Sahib nods twice. I take that to mean, Thank you, and will you help me carry this box? Funny how I know exactly what he means even when he says nothing, while my uncle uses a hundred words and I can’t find much meaning in anything he says.

I hold one end of the box with my two hands. Chinna Abdul Sahib holds the other end. I walk up the stairs backwards, and he comes up after me. Step by step by step.

There. We put the box down carefully outside 2B.

Then Chinna Abdul Sahib pulls out a bunch of jingly keys and opens his door. I help him lift the box over the threshold and place it on the floor.

“Is that one of your drums?” I ask.

He scratches his beard. He stares at the wall.

Then, “You want to see?” he says.

You could knock me down with a feather, which means that I’m very surprised. In all the time that I have seen Chinna Abdul Sahib coming and going, I don’t think I have ever heard him speak a single word.

He opens up the box. I take a peek.

I was right. It is a drum. A giant pot-drum.

“What’s that?” I point to the shiny flecks showing through the clay.

“Brass,” he says, “for a ringing sound.”

They make this clay pot with bits of brass? This is one thing I have never come across in a book.

He knocks on the pot with his knuckle. It rings. It sings. It has a voice all its own. I can see why Chinna Abdul Sahib does not need to say much. His ghatam does all the talking.

A clock strikes from somewhere inside the flat. Eight o’clock!

“I have to go,” I say.

I don’t want to miss my bus.

“Very kind of you,” he calls after me, “to help me with my drum.”

That is ten whole words he’s used up just for me.