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But then who would be there to cook the vermicelli? If only she had the money she could
have bought the ingredients on the way back and quickly made the pudding. In the village
it would take her many hours to get everything. The only way out was to ask someone for
them.

The villagers leave in one party. With the boys is Hamid. They run on ahead of the
elders and wait for them under a tree. Why do the oldies drag their feet? And Hamid is
like one with wings on his feet. How could anyone think he would get tired? They reach
the suburbs of the town. On both sides of the road are mansions of the rich enclosed all
around by thick, high walls. In the gardens, mango and leechee trees are laden with fruit.
A boy hurls a stone at a mango tree. The gardener rushes out screaming abuses at them.
By then the boys are furlongs out of his reach and roaring with laughter.

So we proceed to the stores of the sweet-meat vendors. All so gaily decorated! Who can eat
all these delicacies? Just look! Every store has them piled up in mountain heaps.

For village children everything in the town is strange. Whatever catches their eye, they
stand and gape at it with wonder. Cars hoot frantically to get them out of the way, but they
couldn’t care less. Hamid is nearly run over by a car.

At long last the Eidgah comes in view. Above it are massive tamarind trees casting their
shade on the cemented floor on which carpets have been spread. And there are row upon

row of worshippers as far as the eye can see, spilling well beyond the mosque courtyard.
Newcomers line themselves behind the others. Here neither wealth nor status matters
because in the eyes of Islam all men are equal. Our villagers wash their hands and feet and
make their own line behind the others. What a beautiful, heart-moving sight it is! What
perfect coordination of movements! A hundred thousand heads bow together in prayer!

And then all together they stand erect; bow down and sit on their knees! Many times they
repeat these movements—exactly as if a hundred thousand electric bulbs were switched
on and off at the same time again and again. What a wonderful spectacle it is!

The prayer is over. Men embrace each other. They descend on the sweet and toy-
vendors’ stores like an army moving to an assault. In this matter the grown-up rustic is
no less eager than the boys. Look, here is a swing! Pay a pice and enjoy riding up to the

heavens and then plummeting down to the earth. And here is the roundabout strung
with wooden elephants, horses and camels! Pay one pice and have twenty-five rounds of
fun. Mahmood and Mohsin and Noorey and other boys mount the horses and camels.

Hamid watches them from a distance. All he has are three pice. He couldn’t afford to part
with a third of his treasure for a few miserable rounds.

They’ve finished with the roundabouts; now it is time for the toys. furlong: an eighth of a
There is a row of stalls on one side with all kinds of toys; soldiers and mile, 220 yards
plummeting: dropping
milkmaids, kings and ministers, water-carriers and washerwomen down at high speed

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