Ameen is seventeen when the war breaks out. One Monday, after supper, he announces he will go to war. Sonabhan shrieks in surprise. You want to leave me alone?
It won't take long, Ma, he assures her. I'll be back soon after the training.That night Sonabhan cannot sleep.
After sun-up, she opens the duck coop. The flock streams out, stretches and quacks around her for their morning meal. She takes longer than usual. She mixes water with rice husks in an earthen bowl and. puts it down. They gobble it up in five minutes and head for the pond.
Ameen has let out the chickens by then. He lifts his 12-week-old cockerel, Moti, and sits on the veranda. During his breakfast he doesn't strike up any conversation. Having noticed Sonabhan's puffy eyes, he knows not to mention last night's subject. He casts his glance to the side, down at the cockerel eating rice in silence.
Today is haat bar, market day. Sonabhan has arranged the things Ameen will take to the bazaar to sell. Two dozen eggs, a sheaf of areca nuts, a bottle gourd. The bazaar is about a mile away.
Ameen wears his short-sleeved floral shirt over his lungi. He whistles as he looks into the cloudy mirror to comb his hair.
Placing the rattan basket on his head before setting-off, he hollers: I'm off, Ma.
Sonabhan watches him go along the bank of the little river. For the first time it occurs to her that Ameen has grown up. He has reached the height of his dead father, has his long neck and straight shoulders.
In that moment, Sonabhan realizes it's not the war, it's the fighting that Ameen is fascinated with. Like his dead father, he is crazy about bullfighting, cockfighting and boat racing. The same stubbornness flows in his blood. Once he decides on something, nothing can stop him.
Her little son! Now a man. Even up to his fifteenth birthday barely a day passed without neighbours appearing with a slew of complaints. Sometimes one or two turned up from other villages. They peeked into the house and asked, Does Ameen live here?
Sonabhan would sigh. What did he do?
Your son stole my date juice! Emptied the juice pots hanging on the date trees!
Sonabhan would sigh again. Then ask the visitor to pardon him. She hated saying that she'd raised her son alone. If she could spare them, she would bring half a dozen eggs and hand them to the visitor: Please take these for your children.
At night, Sonabhan climbs out of her bed, clutches the hurricane lamp and tiptoes into Ameen's room. She stands by his bed, looks at her sleeping son. He snores like his father. He has her light skin and button nose. She touches his cheek. His broad forehead. She suppresses a desire to lie beside him. Like the old days, when she slept cuddling her baby.

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