them, the new possibilities of Sampath’s fame would remain forever untapped and unexploited. However, of course it was true that he wished all improvements for his family. ‘There is no need for old people to suffer any more,’ he said grandly, as if this substitute for teeth had been his idea in the first place.
Feeling so dowdy she could have cried, Pinky stomped after her grandmother to the bus stop. Unlike her granddaughter, Ammaji was in fine temper. The air outside the town was cool and clean, and reminded her of her childhood. Her grandson was proving to be a great success, just as she had always thought he would be. And she was going to get some dentures.
‘After we get the dentures,’ she said generously to Pinky, ‘we can go and see
Love Story
‘85.’ Surely a good movie would improve Pinky’s spirits. It had been hard to sit in the bus with someone so sour and unwilling to talk. Really, she reflected, Pinky was too headstrong. If she did not get her own way, she sulked and tried to make everybody else feel bad as well. And the trouble with those who did this wasthat, in the end, unable to stand their sulking, people gave way to them and they got all sorts of presents and treats. It was the good-natured people who suffered in this world. Nobody paid any attention to them. For example, look at the way she had been ignored about the dentures. Months and months, no, indeed years, had gone by in discomfort and deprivation. However, of course, she was not one to sulk and complain.
Praying she would not be seen by any of her acquaintances or the other girls from the polytechnic, Pinky dragged Ammaji through a dark maze of filthy side streets, insisting on taking the back road into the main bazaar area so she would be seen by as few people as possible, her nerves taut, her eyes on the look-out for potential incidents where she might be shamed before some fancy fashion plate of an acquaintance who didn’t deserve the pleasure of witnessing Pinky’s humiliation.
The denture lady had a whole array of dentures spread out before her on a mat in the corner of the bazaar, between the fish lady and the woman with the plastic buckets. Undeterred by the smell of fish, Ammaji squatted down on the mat and tried them all on. One too big, others too small … Finally there was one that seemed somewhat to fit.
‘Yes, yes,’ said the denture woman, ‘it will be fine. It is better that they are a little loose than a little tight.’
Ammaji donned the new gadget, moving and distorting her lips over the unfamiliar expanse of plastic, smacking her two new rows of teeth against each other appreciatively.
It was only later that they ran into a bit of misfortune.
They had emerged from the cinema with Pinky feeling somewhat mollified by the thrilling scenes she had just witnessed between hero and heroine amidst mountingobstacles of dread and terror. This
Love Story
was a film beyond compare! When it first came out, the line of people waiting to get in had snaked all the way from the ticket booth to the university gates, travelling around corners and, blocking traffic, stretching across streets. The crowds nicknamed the heroine Thunder Thighs and went again and again to see her cavort in the famous waterfall scene. There, in defiance of parental wishes and differences in income, religion and caste specifications, she sang in the spray with her beloved, matching him only in the supreme attributes of true love and good looks. There was nothing better than to watch a satisfying drama, one that caused your blood to run strong and red again. Ammaji and Pinky emerged strengthened into the late afternoon and stopped at the Hungry Hop Kwality Ice Cream van for ice cream.
It was at this moment that Pinky spotted the Cinema Monkey! The Cinema Monkey who had so long been harassing the ladies of the town for peanut cones. There it was, loping its way towards them! Hai Rama, how on earth could they have possibly forgotten? Coming to the
Feeling so dowdy she could have cried, Pinky stomped after her grandmother to the bus stop. Unlike her granddaughter, Ammaji was in fine temper. The air outside the town was cool and clean, and reminded her of her childhood. Her grandson was proving to be a great success, just as she had always thought he would be. And she was going to get some dentures.
‘After we get the dentures,’ she said generously to Pinky, ‘we can go and see
Love Story
‘85.’ Surely a good movie would improve Pinky’s spirits. It had been hard to sit in the bus with someone so sour and unwilling to talk. Really, she reflected, Pinky was too headstrong. If she did not get her own way, she sulked and tried to make everybody else feel bad as well. And the trouble with those who did this wasthat, in the end, unable to stand their sulking, people gave way to them and they got all sorts of presents and treats. It was the good-natured people who suffered in this world. Nobody paid any attention to them. For example, look at the way she had been ignored about the dentures. Months and months, no, indeed years, had gone by in discomfort and deprivation. However, of course, she was not one to sulk and complain.
Praying she would not be seen by any of her acquaintances or the other girls from the polytechnic, Pinky dragged Ammaji through a dark maze of filthy side streets, insisting on taking the back road into the main bazaar area so she would be seen by as few people as possible, her nerves taut, her eyes on the look-out for potential incidents where she might be shamed before some fancy fashion plate of an acquaintance who didn’t deserve the pleasure of witnessing Pinky’s humiliation.
The denture lady had a whole array of dentures spread out before her on a mat in the corner of the bazaar, between the fish lady and the woman with the plastic buckets. Undeterred by the smell of fish, Ammaji squatted down on the mat and tried them all on. One too big, others too small … Finally there was one that seemed somewhat to fit.
‘Yes, yes,’ said the denture woman, ‘it will be fine. It is better that they are a little loose than a little tight.’
Ammaji donned the new gadget, moving and distorting her lips over the unfamiliar expanse of plastic, smacking her two new rows of teeth against each other appreciatively.
It was only later that they ran into a bit of misfortune.
They had emerged from the cinema with Pinky feeling somewhat mollified by the thrilling scenes she had just witnessed between hero and heroine amidst mountingobstacles of dread and terror. This
Love Story
was a film beyond compare! When it first came out, the line of people waiting to get in had snaked all the way from the ticket booth to the university gates, travelling around corners and, blocking traffic, stretching across streets. The crowds nicknamed the heroine Thunder Thighs and went again and again to see her cavort in the famous waterfall scene. There, in defiance of parental wishes and differences in income, religion and caste specifications, she sang in the spray with her beloved, matching him only in the supreme attributes of true love and good looks. There was nothing better than to watch a satisfying drama, one that caused your blood to run strong and red again. Ammaji and Pinky emerged strengthened into the late afternoon and stopped at the Hungry Hop Kwality Ice Cream van for ice cream.
It was at this moment that Pinky spotted the Cinema Monkey! The Cinema Monkey who had so long been harassing the ladies of the town for peanut cones. There it was, loping its way towards them! Hai Rama, how on earth could they have possibly forgotten? Coming to the
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