Chapter 22 | The Haude_Cooler

Newtown Madressa, in close proximity to the Oriental plaza, was  my madressa (Miya’s and Eesa’s too) till Class 5. There was the café not far by, for which we would empty out some coins from our money box so that we could purchase a buddy bottle (Coke) and a few sweets for after, for a little less than R3.

Every day, after madressa, we would stand by the poles outside the musjid round the corner, till Papa came to fetch us. Sometimes it was at precisely 5:00pm, and at other times we would stand till darkness was nearing its fort. Unafraid, yet anxious.

Cell phones weren’t a norm then, Papa himself didn’t own one. And so, we waited, in expectancy of his arrival ‘any minute now.’

No one’s parents offered you a lift, or asked if someone was coming for you, or where was it you lived. If someone did, I don’t recall it.

The berry filled tree’s than traced along the pavements would sometimes be used as appetizers in our wait. For all I know they could have been poisonous but we didn’t know better, still, we survived.

We would sometimes run into the musjid to drink water. The cooler stood in one corner, leaning magnificently against porcelain tiles, dripping seductively, tapping against the silver stainless steel cup placed under. I can’t say this without it sounding like an exaggeration but I have never tasted water sweeter in taste and cooler in temperature than the water from that cooler. It was like the Haude_kauthar had nested there and gave birth to a family of perfectly tasting water molecules.

Once, whilst we were standing there a man in his mid 40’s placed a R1 coin as he was passing us. I assumed he had mistaken us for beggars and I ran after him to return his alms. He smiled and said that we should keep it. Long story short, I ended up swallowing that coin by mistaken.

When I think about it now, I’m disgusted by my indifference to concepts like hygiene. Drinking from the same cup as possibly a hundred others? Putting a coin in my mouth? What was I thinking?

Though when I consider it, I realize the childlike innocence that was my childhood. In a couple of years, I had grown and I latch onto these little memories, though seemingly insignificant, because they segregate the adult from the child.