Boats On Land: A Collection Of Short Stories - Plot & Excerpts
She wore a high-waisted navy skirt, a well-cut blazer of the same colour over a crisp white blouse, and a floral-patterned scarf that kept her hair in place. I remember how, after she alighted, she stood for a moment in the sunshine, taking in her surroundings—Kelvin Cinema, the Secretariat building and its sloping, manicured lawns, Mr Biswas’s Time House watch shop. Even from that distance I could tell she was exhilarated to be here.I remember wondering why. I couldn’t understand it. Apart from pernicious local drama, nothing of much excitement ever happened in our small, sleepy town. At the time, the British had been gone five years, but Shillong still slumped in post-colonial depression. We missed them; some wouldn’t even mind having them back. As Mama Jos would say when he came in to buy tobacco, ‘Better the white man than these dkhars.’‘Which ones?’ I’d ask.‘All of them.’It was a useful word, dkhar, clubbing together anyone who came from beyond the hills.Everyone had watched curiously as she walked briskly towards my shop—Mr Biswas, the market women with their baskets of seasonal vegetables and fruit, Kong Lee who manned a makeshift kwai and cigarette kiosk, Bah Lyngdoh from his jadoh stall nearby.
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