Chapter 4

The chapter starts with Anand serving dinner to his sister and the old man. The old man then rummages and pulls out the mango Anand had dropped earlier! Anand tentatively asks if he can see the Conch and the old man pulls it out of his bag. Anand reaches out to touch the Conch but when the old man puts it back in his bag Anand is enraged but the old man's words bring him back to his senses. The old man then asks Meera (Anand's sister) to come closer. Anand expects her to crawl away but she surprisingly crawls towards him. The old man touched her temples and his lips formed noiseless words. He then tells Anand that he is removing the bad memories of the killing that made her not talk. His mother then comes home and asks Anand suspiciously about the old man. in an event of the worst timing possible Meera makes a guttral sound in her throat and Anand's mother cries out. Anand tries to convince her that the old man is a good person but she is convinced otherwise. Anand asks the old man to let her see the Conch and the old man does so but only reluctantly saying that not everybody is supposed to. When the old man finally does relent and show Anand's mother the Conch she sees a dirty piece of bone wrapped in a rag and exclaims that his voodoo powers wont work on her. The old man then is about to depart but says to Anand that to meet him at Panchu's boarding house if he changed his mind. The chapter goes on with Anand in bed when he suddenly asks his mother if the dinner tasted good. She says yes and asks why. Anand just asks if it tasted a little different. His mother that it is same as everyday. Anand then begins to doubt if any of the things of that evening actually happened and manages to convince himself that the old man was a cheap two bit magician who was trying to lure Anand from his home and that his mother had saved them.

This chapter gave me a feeling of unease and disappointment. I think that it gave me a feeling of unease because i wasn't sure what the old man was doing. And i think that i got a feeling of disappointment because Anand's mother couldn't see the beauty of the Conch.