Stories of Ourselves: "Games at Twilight" by Anita Desai

A young boy named Ravi hopes to win a game of hide-and-seek in order to prove to his older siblings and cousins that he is significant.

Here are links to our lists for the short stories in Stories of Ourselves:
The Hollow of the Three Hills, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Signalman, The Happy Prince, The Yellow Wall Paper, The Son’s Veto, The Open Boat, The Moving Finger, The Door in the Wall, Sredni Vashtar, How It Happened, Her First Ball, The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection, The Fly in the Ointment, The Custody of the Pumpkin, An Englishman’s Home, The Phoenix, There Will Come Soft Rains, The Prison, The Destructors, Meteor, Billenium, The Lemon Orchard, The People Before, The Enemy, Five-Twenty, A Horse and Two Goats, Report on the Threatened City, The Rain Horse, Ming’s Biggest Prey, The Village Saint, Secrets, The Stoat, Games at Twilight, The Taste of Watermelon, Journey (Patricia Grace), The Bath, My Greatest Ambition, To Da-duh, in Memoriam, Of White Hairs and Cricket, Elephant, Sandpiper, Journey (Shirley Geok-Lin Um), The Third and Final Continent, Tyres, At Hiruharama, Real Time, On Her Knees, The Contest
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. stifle
    impair the respiration of or obstruct the air passage of
    Their faces were red and bloated with the effort, but their mother would not open the door, everything was still curtained and shuttered in a way that stifled the children, made them feel that their lungs were stuffed with cotton wool and their noses with dust and if they didn’t burst out into the light and see the sun and feel the air, they would choke.
  2. veranda
    a porch along the outside of a building
    ‘We’ll play in the veranda and porch – we won’t go a step out of the porch.’
  3. sari
    a draped dress worn primarily by Hindu women
    ‘No – we won’t, we won’t,’ they wailed so horrendously that she actually let down the bolt of the front door so that they burst out like seeds from a crackling, over-ripe pod into the veranda, with such wild, maniacal yells that she retreated to her bath and the shower of talcum powder and the fresh sari that were to help her face the summer evening.
  4. strident
    unpleasantly loud and harsh
    The white walls of the veranda glared stridently in the sun.
  5. livid
    discolored by coagulation of blood beneath the skin
    The bougainvillea hung about it, purple and magenta, in livid balloons.
  6. arid
    lacking sufficient water or rainfall
    No life stirred at this arid time of day – the birds still drooped, like dead fruit, in the papery tents of the trees; some squirrels lay limp on the wet earth under the garden tap.
  7. melancholy
    grave or even gloomy in character
    ‘Now clap!’ she roared and, clapping, they all chanted in melancholy unison: ‘Dip, dip, dip – my blue ship –’ and every now and then one or the other saw he was safe by the way his hands fell at the crucial moment – palm on palm, or back of hand on palm – and dropped out of the circle with a yell and a jump of relief and jubilation.
  8. jubilation
    a feeling of extreme joy
    ‘Now clap!’ she roared and, clapping, they all chanted in melancholy unison: ‘Dip, dip, dip – my blue ship – ’ and every now and then one or the other saw he was safe by the way his hands fell at the crucial moment – palm on palm, or back of hand on palm – and dropped out of the circle with a yell and a jump of relief and jubilation.
  9. supercilious
    having or showing arrogant superiority
    ‘I know I have to, idiot,’ Raghu said, superciliously kicking him with his toe.
  10. sprawl
    sit or lie with one's limbs spread out
    Ravi had peeped in and seen him still sprawling on his string-cot in his vest and striped underpants, the hair on his chest and the hair in his nose shaking with the vibrations of his phlegm-obstructed snores.
  11. sidle
    move unobtrusively or furtively
    He had sidled away and sat dejectedly on the flower pot.
  12. dejected
    affected or marked by low spirits
    He had sidled away and sat dejectedly on the flower pot.
  13. mortuary
    a building where bodies are kept before burial or cremation
    Ravi had never cared to enter such a dark and depressing mortuary of defunct household goods seething with such unspeakable and alarming animal life but, as Raghu’s whistling grew angrier and sharper and his crashing and storming in the hedge wilder, Ravi suddenly slipped off the flower pot and through the crack and was gone.
  14. defunct
    no longer in force or use; inactive
    Ravi had never cared to enter such a dark and depressing mortuary of defunct household goods seething with such unspeakable and alarming animal life but, as Raghu’s whistling grew angrier and sharper and his crashing and storming in the hedge wilder, Ravi suddenly slipped off the flower pot and through the crack and was gone.
  15. temerity
    fearless daring
    He chuckled aloud with astonishment at his own temerity so that Raghu came out of the hedge, stood silent with his hands on his hips, listening, and finally shouted ‘I heard you! I’m coming! Got you–’ and came charging round the garage only to find the upturned flower pot, the yellow dust, the crawling of white ants in a mud-hill against the closed shed door – nothing.
  16. fray
    a noisy fight
    He contemplated slipping out of the shed and into the fray.
  17. lavish
    characterized by extravagance and profusion
    The gardener would fix the hosepipe to the water tap and water would fall lavishly through the air to the ground, soaking the dry yellow grass and the red gravel and arousing the sweet, the intoxicating scent of water on dry earth – that loveliest scent in the world.
  18. intoxicating
    extremely exciting
    The gardener would fix the hosepipe to the water tap and water would fall lavishly through the air to the ground, soaking the dry yellow grass and the red gravel and arousing the sweet, the intoxicating scent of water on dry earth – that loveliest scent in the world.
  19. hirsute
    having or covered with hair
    To defeat Raghu – that hirsute, hoarse-voiced football champion – and to be the winner in a circle of older, bigger, luckier children – that would be thrilling beyond imagination.
  20. laurel
    a wreath of foliage worn on the head as an emblem of victory
    He hugged his knees together and smiled to himself almost shyly at the thought of so much victory, such laurels.
  21. dogged
    stubbornly unyielding
    There he sat smiling, knocking his heels against the bathtub, now and then getting up and going to the door to put his ear to the broad crack and listening for sounds of the game, the pursuer and the pursued, and then returning to his seat with the dogged determination of the true winner, a breaker of records, a champion.
  22. slake
    satisfy, as thirst
    Evening. Twilight. The sound of water gushing, falling. The scent of earth receiving water, slaking its thirst in great gulps and releasing that green scent of freshness, coolness.
  23. seethe
    be noisy with activity
    The bougainvillea had lost its lividity, hung in dark bundles that quaked and twittered and seethed with masses of homing sparrows.
  24. elude
    escape, either physically or mentally
    He had only remembered the part of hiding and trying to elude the seeker.
  25. bawl
    shout loudly and without restraint
    With a whimper he burst through the crack, fell on his knees, got up and stumbled on stiff, benumbed legs across the shadowy yard, crying heartily by the time he reached the veranda so that when he flung himself at the white pillar and bawled, ‘Den! Den! Den!’ his voice broke with rage and pity at the disgrace of it all and he felt himself flooded with tears and misery.
  26. sepulchral
    of or relating to a chamber that is used as a grave
    The trees and bushes around them stood inky and sepulchral, spilling long shadows across them.
  27. lugubrious
    excessively mournful
    The children trooped under it again and again in a lugubrious circle, ducking their heads and intoning
    ‘The grass is green,
    The rose is red;
    Remember me
    When I am dead, dead, dead, dead...’
  28. intone
    recite musically; recite as a chant or a psalm
    The children trooped under it again and again in a lugubrious circle, ducking their heads and intoning
    ‘The grass is green,
    The rose is red;
    Remember me
    When I am dead, dead, dead, dead...’
  29. refrain
    part of a song or poem that recurs at regular intervals
    And the arc of thin arms trembled in the twilight, and the heads were bowed so sadly, and their feet tramped to that melancholy refrain so mournfully, so helplessly, that Ravi could not bear it.
  30. ignominy
    a state of dishonor
    The ignominy of being forgotten – how could he face it?
Created on Mon Mar 05 14:25:40 EST 2018 (updated Fri Mar 23 15:40:23 EDT 2018)

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