I’m not buying anything from the corner shop any more.
Because of what happened on Saturday evening when I got to the kaalo rather late. At about midnight.
There were no bodaboda motorbikes at the stage where they usually park, with their riders supping on chapati and beans.
It was a cold night owing to the earlier downpour.
And so I walked from the bodaboda stage and waited near the corner shop which was still open.
The chapati-maker was frying his wares. It looked like he had just started for the night.
Then I saw something that made my heart stop. Actually, I kind of felt it.
The feeling was weird.
I must have been the only one who saw it because the shop-woman was busy arguing with a customer who wanted to pay less for the two sticks of tobacco that he had taken.
She had moved to the door to try and snatch them back.
The other man who was there was speaking animatedly on his mobile phone.
An animal in form of a giant rodent, a humongous black rat that was nearly the size of a kitten, had snuck on to the top shelves and was sniffing around the five or so packets of wheat flour.
Then it started biting at one of them.
When the cigarette man raised his voice in disagreement, the rat was startled and momentarily paused its nibbling.
Then it made its way to where the packs of spaghetti were stacked and sniffed around. Nothing there. It ran across the cheap rolls of toilet paper, on top of the 32-page exercise books and on to the lower shelf where the bars of soap were displayed.
Past that and on to the packs of sanitary pads.
Just then the shop-woman turned and reached for the packets of tea-leaves.
The rat jumped to the floor, disappearing into the many open kutiyas of grain and sugar.
The woman let out a blood-curdling scream.
