Chapter 13 — Late Bloomers

The reading programme started in May with nine children and ended the year with twenty-three. Mrs. Apte volunteered as assistant, primarily for the purpose, she said, of keeping order. She was effective at this.Vikram's hip movement reached what Freddy classified as "expressive and intentional" by July. He considered this an engineering achievement. Sunita told the story of the spice rack at a dinner party that December and they both laughed at it, which meant something had become memory rather than wound.Nirmala published Things I Learned Late as a small self-published collection in the following year. Meghna designed the cover. Arjun ordered twelve copies without being asked. Rekha sold copies in the building and then in three other buildings in the neighbourhood.It was not a bestseller. It was read by the people it was meant for.The Zumba class continued, because Freddy renewed his contract and the ZUMBA QUEENS group voted to continue with twelve emojis in favour and zero against. The group name was eventually changed back to ZUMBA QUEENS 👑💃 because the longer version was impossible to type on a phone with reading glasses.The bench under the gulmohar is still there. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, after class, two people sit on it and drink whatever is available and talk about things that are worth talking about. The gulmohar doesn't care about any of this. It blooms anyway, every April, as it always has, orange and extravagant and entirely unaware of being late.✦ ✦ ✦