Chalk on the doorstep

Every morning, after kusti and before work, I do the chalk. Parsi women have drawn designs on the doorstep for generations: you fill a little tin punched with holes with white chalk powder, tap it along the threshold, and the pattern falls through. Fish for good luck, flowers, neat rows of dots.

My mother did hers in Bombay on a stone step polished by eighty years of feet. I do mine on a concrete step in Leicester that the postman walks through by half nine. It doesn't matter. It's a welcome, a blessing on whoever crosses, and a reminder to start the day with something beautiful, even if it only lasts until the first delivery.

My neighbour's boy thinks it's for hopscotch. I've decided not to correct him.