Tomorrow is another day

Phale is one of the Konkani words I've picked up from Babuli, the strange, sweet, maddening creature who brings fresh milk for me every morning, and whom strangers might call the village idiot.

'Babuli,' I say, 'will you dig a small hole for me? I want to plant something.'

Phale, he replies. Tomorrow.

The next day I ask again.

Phale, he says again.

When the dialogue continues in this vein over several days, I stop asking.

Then one day Babuli turns up and gives me one of his pleading smiles, showing tobacco-stained buck teeth. 'Give me 10 rupees,' he says coaxingly in Marathi. 'I want to cut my hair.'

'Dig a small hole for me,' I say immediately. 'I want to plant something.'

So Babuli at last gets down to digging a small hole. Picking up the pickaxe (pickass, he calls it) he throws it into the soil with enthusiasm. Soon he hits a stone. Paathar, he says, looking less enthusiastic. Stone.

'Just take it out, Babuli,' I say.

He smokes a beedi. He attacks the soil again. He stops. Pura, he says. Enough.

'Little more, Babuli,' I coax.

'Pura, he says again, more crossly.

Suddenly he remembers that he has to go into the fields. He'll come again, he tells me, to finish the job. Phale.

Ten rupees are gently extracted from me for his haircut.

The next day he appears looking bleary-eyed, as if he's been up drinking.

'You didn't cut your hair, Babuli,' I say.

'Phale,' he replies. I'll cut it tomorrow.