Om symbol with elephant head and script

The ferry men say the wind has gone round to the north-east and will hold until Thursday, so I am writing this at the kitchen table while the kettle takes its time. Your letter came on Monday with the Bombay stamp smudged half off. I read it three times on the step, and then Mrs Hallam from number nine asked whether it was bad news. I could not tell her, because it was not. It was only you saying the monsoon was late and the cotton crates were warping in the godown.

Father's sign is still over the workshop door. He painted the Om himself the spring before he went, and tried to make the curl of it into the head of Ganesha, the way Grandmother drew it on the back of our school slates. He never got the trunk right. Last week I scraped away the flaking blue and gave the little eye a fresh dab of red, because the gulls kept watching it as though it might fly off the board.

The two words beneath the Om are still the ones he chose, Ishwar and Kutumb. God and family. He said they belonged together, and that a man at sea needs both written down where he can see them when he comes up the gangway. I have started reading them aloud on the quay in the evenings, which the fishermen find very funny.

Come home by the autumn tide if the owners let you. The boat will be pulled up by then and I will have the door planed so it stops sticking. Bring the cotton samples. Mrs Hallam sends her regards and says the kettle is not the only thing that takes its time. Your sister, Meera