Flame Tree Road by Shona Patel Read Free Book Online Page A

behind in his studies. His family wants to send him to study in Calcutta. The schoolmaster has recommended me to give him private tuition. I wonder why your mastermoshai does not give the child private tuition himself?”
    “Because he is afraid,” Biren blurted out. He remembered how the belligerent ladies had cowed down the poor schoolmaster.
    “Afraid?” said Shamol, puzzled. “Afraid of what? I don’t understand.”
    “His mother is very...” Biren tried to think of the right word. “Ferocious.”
    “Well, I am not worried about his ferocious mother. The problem is I get home too late. I don’t have the time to go to the child’s house but I can tutor him if they send him to our basha .”
    Biren looked at his father in horror. “But he cannot come to our basha , Baba!” he cried.
    “And why not?” said his father, mildly surprised.
    Biren wanted to say, Because he wears knee-length socks and cries like a girl. Because he is too rich and we are too poor, because my friends will laugh and everybody will think he is my friend. But all he could say was, “Because he rides in a palanquin.”
    “Why, that’s rather fine,” said his father.
    “Like a girl ,” Biren added, to drive home the point. “Only girls ride in palanquins.”
    “I wouldn’t mind riding a palanquin,” said Shibani.
    “Someday, my darling,” said his father, “and I will decorate it with sweet-scented lilies for you.” He gave Shibani a long tender look that made her toss her hair back in a girlish way.
    Biren tugged his father’s hand. “Baba, what are you going to do?”
    “I can offer to teach him at the same time I teach you two. They don’t have to pay me any money for that.”
    “But they are rich,” said Biren. “Very rich. He brings new pencils and erasers to school every day.”
    Shamol Roy looked at his son sadly. He wished he could buy his wife a palanquin, but she had to be content with a few lilies instead. Here was his boy hankering for a new pencil and all he could afford were the pencil stubs discarded at the office. Biren, dexterous for an eight-year-old, used a razor blade to pare both ends to get maximum usage out of them.
    Biren was quick to catch his father’s sadness. “But I like the small pencils much better,” he said brightly. “They are easier to carry around in my pocket and if I lose one I don’t feel so bad because I have many more. Also, you want to know one more thing? Carrying long sharpened pencils in your pocket is very dangerous. If you fall down and get poked in your eye you can become blind. Then you won’t be able to go to school, or read, or...or...even fly a kite. So what’s the use?”
    Shamol Roy smiled at his son, the diplomat. Biren was wily with his words, but more important he was a thoughtful, compassionate child. “Bring me one of your pencils,” he said. “Let me write a reply to your mastermoshai.”
    “They will pay you lots of good money for the tuition, Baba.” Biren jumped up, dizzy with the vision of new pencils and erasers. Why, they might even be able to afford one of those mechanical pencil sharpeners.
    “They may offer to pay me,” said his father. “But I don’t need to accept it.”
    “But why not?” Biren was crestfallen. “Samir’s family has lots of money.”
    “That is not the point,” said his father. “Do you know the difference between opportunity and advantage, mia ? An opportunity is something that is offered to you. An advantage is something you take. It would be foolish to miss an opportunity but it is sometimes wise to forgo an advantage.”
    “So why are you not taking the money?”
    “Because I am not going out of my way to tutor the child. I am not doing anything extra. So why should I charge money for work I have not done? Never mind, don’t worry about it. Go get me a pencil.”
    Shamol Roy scribbled a quick reply on the reverse of the schoolmaster’s note and sent it back with Biren.

CHAPTER
    11
    It was all settled,