Savitri rushed towards her shack, her eyes wide with excitement. Pushing apart the grimy gunny sack that served as a curtain, she cried – ‘Look what I’ve brought? Three laddoos!’

Her husband was sitting on a torn durry at one corner of the tiny tin roofed room that served as a shelter for the family of five. The ailing mother-in-law lay sunken in a rickety string cot that seemed to stand on will power rather than the four crooked legs. The old lady groaned and the man grunted an acknowledgment. Only the six year old son jumped up with delight and her four year old daughter tugged at her sari.

‘Where did you get laddoos from?’ the boy asked, trying to untie the knot of her sari pallu in which she had tied up the delectable sweets. ‘Give me one,’ he demanded impatiently.

‘Who gave them to you?’ grunted her husband suspiciously. ‘And what did you give in return?’

‘You are always so nasty!’ she reprimanded, squatting on the dirty floor. ‘After finishing my work I had gone to the temple to beg. I thought at least on the Diwali day, some extra money could give us a little more food. As it is you’ve not gone to work for so many days.’

‘Don’t start your grumbling.’ He threatened, his face contorted with pain and rage. ‘You talk as though you’ve been feeding me all your life.’ His wound was bothering him once more.

‘But the laddoos…. Tell me about them. Who gave you the laddoos,’ asked the little boy.

‘A kind gentleman was distributing laddoos to all the beggars because a grandson was born today morning. He gave me one but I begged for one more for my children. I told him that the birth of his grandson on the Diwali day was a very auspicious event, so he smiled and gave me two more laddoos.’

It was a momentous occasion for the family of five. Even the old lady, who never moved out of her cot, leaned over and stretched out her hand eagerly. 

It was Diwali.

For days Savitri’s husband had not been able to go for work because of an injury. A week back, while heaving a heavy sack at sabzi mandi, he had fallen over a metal pipe and got a nasty gash on his leg which made him limp. The gash had turned septic and given fever. It was Savitri’s work as a bai that brought them a meal a day and some leftovers that the kind lady provided for the children.

After her work at the apartment was done, she would land up at the temple to augment her earnings. A few rupees were welcome, anyway.

The old woman had been suffering from a wheezing for the last one decade and her wasted body had occupied the broken cot for an equal number of years. She was waiting for her death and so were the others so that her share of the meagre meal could be distributed amongst the four mouths that shared the hovel.

‘NO,’ shouted her husband. ‘Let the old hag have one. She has just a few more days to live. Let her go in peace.’

The toothless old woman nodded in agreement, her mouth barely able to contain the saliva that was threatening to leak. It had been a very long time since she had tasted a laddoo.

‘I think you should have a full laddoo. You need the energy to get well and go to work,’ the wife said.

No one suggested that she have a full laddoo nor did anyone speak about the little girl. Girls and women were not entitled to privileges.

The slum’s rickety mongrel stole into the hovel and began scratching itself lazily, shedding its ticks liberally on the filthy floor.

The consultation carried on while the old hag and the children waited impatiently.

‘They could give me the extra one and the problem would be solved but then how could she allow it?’ grumbled the hag. ‘I have but a couple of days on earth. It would be nice to leave this hell with a sweet in the mouth but who cares about me. Not even my own son. Be a man and snatch it from that wretched woman’s sari and hand me the laddoo,’ she urged her son.

‘Shut up!’ he shouted irritatedly. ‘I have a good mind of devouring all of them. It is my right to do so. I am being generous by offering to share it with all of you, anyway.’

The arguments turned nasty and everyone raised their voice. The children began crying. It was going to be a repeat of the daily violence, beatings and screaming, they realised. Almost every other night, the father would come home drunk on the hooch and beat up his wife and the children, with or without provocation. It was his way of asserting his manliness.

 ‘Till today, you’ve given me nothing but curses and beatings,’ complained Savitri. ‘I am the one who brought the laddoos and you are shouting at me.’ She began whimpering miserably.

‘Shut up, you bitch. Stop snivelling and give them to me. I’ll do what I think is right. No more discussions!’ he made a move to snatch the laddoos from Savitri’s pallu.

‘You can have two of them but I’ll give one to my son,’ shouted the wife, resisting his hands.

Its tongue hanging, the mongrel waited patiently. The children, scared, cowered in a corner. The old woman howled.

The tug of war continued. Suddenly, the enraged man limped over and kicked his wife hard. She bent over to ward off the blows. The laddoos rolled out of her pallu and the mongrel leaped. In a trice it had taken one of the laddoos in the mouth and rushed out of the hovel.

‘Hai, hai,’ shouted the old hag. ‘God damn you, fighting over the laddoo and allowing that dog to sneak away with one.’

There was a sudden silence.

‘Here take them,’ offered Savitri, contrite after the storm. ‘I don’t want it so you can split the two into four and have a half each.’

Now sober, the husband muttered. ‘Give it to the hag and the children, I can do without it.’

Savitri broke the laddoos in four pieces and handed a half each to the grumbling hag and her scared children and thrust the remaining into her husband’s hand forcefully.

Smiling, he broke a little piece and stuffed it into her mouth. The rest of it went into his mouth.

Surprised, Savitri looked at him and a slow smile relaxed her features. He returned it.

For a moment the dark hovel was lit up with the thousand watt smile that appeared on the couple’s face blinding the old hag and the children.

It was Diwali, after all!