Chapter 11 - Light and Shade

The sun splashed on his face like a wave of water and Maan woke up with a start. Cool wind had made the curtains flutter and light stole in amidst the fluttering, to play with the colors of the objects in the room. It took a while for Maan to realize that he had slept off in the old man’s home. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was 10 in the morning. Then he let out a yawn and felt comforted in the fact that there would be no office for him to go to, at least for some time. He turned over to his side lazily and admired the spots of bright sunlight that moved wantonly on the mosaic floor. He relished the cool wind as it brushed against his face and would have almost fallen asleep again when he heard some noises from inside the home.

He tiptoed his way on the mosaic floor, crossed the span of the sitting room and went inside into a corridor that led to the inner rooms of the old house. It smelled of the past and reminded Maan of a history that he wasn’t even aware of. He saw shadows and heard voices of people that weren’t there. In him surged memories and sensations that he had never felt before. The narrow corridor led into a kitchen where Kamala stood humming a song and stirring a cooking pan kept on the stove. Her tuneful voice rang through the kitchen and merged with the smoke from the pan and the smell of spices in it. Maan stood there by the door looking at her. She turned around and approached Maan and Maan felt certain that she knew that he was looking at her. But she stood right next to Maan and took out something from a kitchen rack and went back to her cooking. Maan, aware of his apparent invisibility, soon felt confident enough to enter the kitchen and look closely at Kamala. She would close her eyes time and again in the middle of her song and her constant stirring would stop momentarily. Then her voice could be heard unmitigated and Maan would listen, seated on the kitchen platform, swaying his legs to her song. The curls of her hair that would casually fall on her face, and she constantly kept brushing them back. She had tied the ends of her saree tightly round her waist and had tucked in a kitchen cloth hanging down like an apron from her waist. She would use this cloth to hold utensils, wipe her hands and even the perspiration on her forehead. A little while later she was done with her cooking and she left the kitchen after putting the utensils in order.

Kamala walked down the narrow corridor at the end of which rose an old spiral staircase. She climbed the steps playfully her hands holding a column that stood nonchalantly in the middle of the staircase. Maan tiptoed his way up the staircase, careful not to make any noise. He emerged into a balcony bathed in sparkling sunlight. Little huts surrounded them like shrubs and bushes and not too far away was the sea, looking like a pond swelling with rainwater.

“Prince Charles? What are you doing here?” she said suddenly.
“How did you know?”
“I have eyes in the back of my head” she said and laughed. She was sitting in the shade at the end of the balcony on a flight of steps that led nowhere.
“Come sit next to me. I come up here often. Ba says it is a wonderful view. Sometimes even I can see hills and houses and seas. Here I can hear my neighbors quarrel in the day and at night I can hear the waves in the distance. Once when I was a little girl we had had a terrible monsoon and the waves had come all the way up to where we are sitting. These days they have pushed back the sea to make room for more people. It isn’t all that easy to push back the sea, the sea sneaks back in every now and then during the monsoons. It is a constant tussle between the sea and the people.”
“You sing very well”, said Maan.
“So you were in the kitchen too!” exclaimed Kamala.
“Yes it is a beautiful view. No, I don’t mean what I saw in the kitchen!” Maan laughed. “I have been in Mumbai for so long that I feel that I belong here and that the sea belongs to me. I look at the sea as a friend. I wonder how it must have felt when the sea came all the way up to here to meet you. Obviously you didn’t splash your feet in the water and wave your hands at other people on rooftops. The sea certainly wouldn’t have felt like a friend then. When I first came I was very scared of the monsoon. The winds are so strong that I felt that building would fall down.”
“Prince Charles, I thought you belong to England!” said Kamala.
“Oh the life in Buckingham Palace got to me. I had to leave, so I took a boat and came down to Mumbai.”
“A boat? No ships in the royal navy?”
“No, that would be too conspicuous. It was a little rowing boat with two oars. One of the oars broke in a storm. Luckily I had a spare. These days I go by the name of Maan. You see, I am wary of the Paparazzi. ”
“What about the guy who claims to be Prince Charles?” asked Kamala.
“He is my evil twin!”