A relative of ours had a house, which fortunately fell vacant just at that juncture, and we gladly accepted his offer.
The house was very much in want of repairs. The shutters and blinds were for the most part broken and the roof leaked in so many places that the walls of the rooms looked like striped linen on account of the constant dripping of the rain water. Dirt, filth and spider's webs abounded. On the other hand the house had some good points too. As it was very large, we easily found one or two habitable rooms. We were only three in number, I, my mother, and my parentless nephew Raju. So we did not need much room. The second good point was that the house was surrounded by a large garden, which was totally uncared for and had a rank growth of weeds, grass and flowers, and I am sure had Animesh been there, he could have compared it with a neglected and forlorn damsel and composed verses about it. The third advantage was that we were fortunate in our neighbours. There were three or four families of the milkmen caste settled just beyond the boundary line of the garden. So we got an abundant supply of milk and butter. A maid-servant, too, was procured from the same locality and she was a great help to mother. Single-handed she did all the work of the household, besides performing the onerous task of telling ghost-stories to Raju. So mother could enjoy her much needed rest.
At a little distance from ours there stood another tenantless house. Its condition, too, was something like that of our own, but as it had the good luck to have an up-country gardener, it was not quite so forlorn. In a few days there grew up a fast friendship between Raju and the old gardener. Raju must have inherited the capacity for forming absurd friendships from his uncle, otherwise he could never have discoverd much attractiveness in that greyheaded Gayadin.
