The Slate of Sin

 

The Slate of Sin

Some memories don’t fade; they just ferment.

This story revolves around a chance reunion, an old slate, and the invisible stains that time cannot erase. What started as a simple evening for snacks in my hometown, Suvarnpur, turned into an unforgettable lesson on dignity, forgiveness, and the quiet nobility of a man named Pramod.

It was around five in the evening—that magical hour when the aroma of fried snacks floats through Suvarnpur’s streets like a festival in the air. I was at the bus stand, waiting for tea, when I spotted a familiar face after five long years.

“Pramod!” I called out.

He turned, surprised, and broke into a smile that conveyed both warmth and weariness.

We had been friends since school. Life took me to another town for a white-collar job; Pramod, however, drifted through several uncertain trades—a phone booth, a photocopy kiosk—before ending up as a security guard at a toy factory.

His schooling was unremarkable; he passed the matriculation exam after his third attempt, convincing himself he was not a dropout but merely a misfit for the rigours of examinations. Accepting this reality, he approached job-seeking with confidence, not considering any job too humble for his dignity. He quickly engaged in various ventures, starting with a rice business on a bicycle, then a phone booth with a photocopier added along the way, and finally a coffee shop with two tables in a dingy room—perfect for lovers to gauge and deepen their intimacy in that semi-dark hangout. However, none proved to be a successful business.

The role of a security guard, too, had come after an ordeal. Years ago, he was falsely accused of stealing a customer’s purse at the kiosk, beaten black and blue, thrown into the police lock-up, and kicked out on an empty stomach. A kind stranger—a factory owner out for his morning walk—found him lying by the roadside, offered him tea, and listened sympathetically to his tale of woes. Although the young man was a suspected criminal—having narrowly avoided the courtroom floor in a criminal case—the factory owner had a way of recognising an honest person, sifting through impulses to reject the story of woes, and he finally gave him work as a guard.

“That man changed my fate,” Pramod told me once.

But that day, meeting after five years, we began with lighter things—snacks and tea. He insisted we go to a roadside restaurant, Chandi Jalpan—or Silver Snacks, as people fondly called it—which had become a legend for its fritters, samosas, and sweets. “My treat,” he warned, wagging a finger when I offered to pay.

We entered the small, bustling eatery. The air was thick with the smell of frying besan (chickpea flour) and boiling oil—the golden fragrance of small-town evenings. Pramod ordered samosas, assorted fritters, and a plate of dazzling sweets called mihidana—tiny, colourful, juicy globules that shimmered like fish eggs but melted on the tongue like a cube of butter. Then came tea, not poured from a pre-made pot but freshly brewed on demand—the kind that carries both warmth and dignity.

When it was time to settle the bill, the waiter did not bring a printed bill inside a folder but shouted the amount across the room. We approached the counter, where the cashier—the owner of Chandi Jalpan himself, a man in his sixties who was not accustomed to trusting any of his workers with money matters—was jotting figures on an old black slate with a piece of limestone.

That slate fascinated me. In an age of calculators and digital tablets, he still used a relic from the 1950s… or even more ancient. I, who had once tried collecting old ink pens before giving up halfway, felt a strange kinship with that slate—an object that had silently witnessed a man’s journey from rags to riches.

The owner noticed my curiosity and smiled. “Want to hold it?” he asked.

I was just about to reach out when Pramod stopped me. His face tightened. “No—don’t touch it,” he said quietly.

I was puzzled but didn’t protest. He paid the modest bill—fifty-five rupees—and we stepped out to sit under a neem tree near the bus stand. The evening light was fading.

“Now tell me,” I said. “Why did you stop me from touching that slate?”

Pramod looked into the distance. “Because that slate has soaked up too many sins,” he said slowly. “All the money written on it—it’s built on cheating. The owner underpays his workers, cuts corners with ingredients, and even duped his old partner out of the business.”

I tried to reason with him. “Profit isn’t sin, Pramod. Every business survives on buying cheap and selling with a margin.”

He smiled sadly. “It’s not about profit. It’s about cruelty.”

Then he shared a story with me. Years ago, when he was a hungry teenager looking for work, he had come to that very restaurant. He had no money, so the owner agreed to give him food—only if he first washed a mountain of greasy cooking pots and cleaned the kitchen.

Starving, Pramod obeyed. When he finished, he was not permitted to sit and eat. “Servants don’t sit,” the owner had announced sternly.

Standing in the corner, Pramod was handed two stale samosas—leftovers from two days earlier—scraped from the waste tub. Too hungry to protest, he ate them. That night, he fell ill in the mess he shared with four other strugglers. Thanks to their homemade ORS, he recovered.

“That man will never remember me,” Pramod said quietly. “But I wanted to see if time had changed him. Or his slate.”

I sat there, speechless—ashamed of my earlier admiration for that ancient slate, and guilty for not having known Pramod’s story before.

I muttered, “Then you shouldn’t have taken me there.”

He only smiled. “I wanted to avenge my old insult—by eating while seated, where once I wasn’t allowed even to sit. I wanted to see if the food still tasted the same. Perhaps, in the end, I just wanted to forgive.”

But I couldn’t shake off my discomfort. We parted with a brief handshake.

Later, Pramod called twice, perhaps to soothe any lingering hurt I might still hold in my mind, but I had already buried the unpleasant memory. I didn’t know then that he was fighting an incurable illness—the dreaded “C” disease—that his time was running out. I didn’t realise he had called to share terrifying news, but upon reflection, he decided not to. He was too much of a gentleman to burden a friend with sorrow; to him, it would have been an act of selfishness. He must have known that when the time came, I would discover the truth for myself, and that I would speak kindly of him, recalling the memories of our happy association. That thought alone must have made Pramod content. There was, after all, no need to seek sympathy through what he would have called spam calls.

The last time he rang me, his voice carried that gentle grace that masks pain too well. He didn’t mention hospitals or treatments; he only had very positive things to say about our friendship. He said I was a perfect gentleman, and that he would pray to have a friend like me in every life to come. I laughed it off then, not realising he was quietly saying goodbye.

Soon, news of his death reached me, and the first words that escaped my lips were:

“What an irony! A good soul like Pramod was born to die young.”

Then I remembered that slate—the one I had nearly touched—and understood why he had stopped me.

I felt like reenacting his role of a hungry boy, standing in a corner of Chandi Jalpan’s kitchen and eating a stale samosa, if that was possible! My eyes filled with sudden tears.

***      ***      ***      ***      ***

That evening remains etched in my mind—not for the food, nor for the nostalgia of meeting an old friend, but for the moral weight of a single object: a slate that had recorded both profit and pain.

Sometimes, sin does not reside in people alone. It lingers in the tools of their trade—in ledgers, machines, or even memories—waiting to be redeemed by a conscience like Pramod’s.

When I think of him now, I don’t see the weary guard or the struggling youth. I see a man who quietly forgave a world that had wronged him, and taught me that forgiveness, too, can be an act of courage.

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By

Ananta Narayan Nanda

Balasore, 21-11-2025

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