Chapter 18 - The Homecoming

Spots of brightness glittered through the dark sky. Much closer than the glittering stars, these were the skyscrapers draped in darkness, teeth flashing through their insidious smiles. These were the beacons that never went out. After all, the city had a reputation to protect. Mumbai never sleeps. As Maan sat with his desk bathed in a pool of light and pondered the events from the morning (the fat constable who spat at the mossy wall and the grim inspector Khan who spoke with a drone), in a different corner of the city a phantom did his nightly rounds. He huffed his way up Malabar hills and secretly admired the beautiful cityscape and the posh neighborhood. Two night guards were chatting about the state of affairs, the corruption, the law and order situation and the upcoming movie releases. They were placed in opposite buildings and they often spoke to one another at this hour in a bid to keep each other awake. One of them carried a flask of tea and he always had plenty of tea for both of them. Sometimes in the middle of the night, the other would walk across the road to fill his cup of tea. But mostly they sat behind the grilled gates of each other’s buildings and spoke through the gaps. That night too, they sat facing each other and saw the phantom walk right through their line of vision. One of them even blew his whistle but the phantom walked away and huffed his way up the hill. He had worn a shawl that night and his tall figure in the moonlight startled the student who happened to peak from his window tired of studying for his exams. In a nearby balcony, a teenage girl looked down at the street waiting for her boyfriend to come and pick her up in his new motorcycle. Her heart skipped a beat at the strange sight of this phantom wrapped in a shawl. Her boyfriend coming in a motorcycle almost ran over the phantom as he tried to balance his bike down hill but the phantom deftly avoided him and kept walking up the hill. The motorcyclist came to halt and exchanged a worried glance with his girl friend at the balcony. She merely shrugged her shoulders.

The phantom walked up to the house with whitewashed walls and red bougainvillea flowers and sat on an abandoned wooden handcart at the opposite end of the street. The guard with bushy moustache sat at his chair looking at the road that went up and curled around a bend. The back legs of his chair withstood immense pressure but didn’t tumble down. He had his arms folded behind his head and kept glancing at the sky. He thought about his family and Rajasthan and wondered when he would get leave to go meet his 6 year old daughter, 4 year old son and his loving wife who was expecting another child. Above the whitewashed walls, a solitary tooth flashed through the crooked smile of the house. This was the window of Mr. Mehta’s daughter. She didn’t have classes the following day so she was going to stay awake late. The TV in her room blared some popular music but failed to grab her attention. The pink curtains of her room fluttered with the wind and the creeping branches of the bougainvillea tree knocked lightly at her glass window. Stuffed toys of various shapes and sizes adorned the walls of the room. A poster of a movie star struck an appropriate pose and vied for her attention. Yet she didn’t look up from the suspense novel in her hand. As she turned a page of the novel, sounds of snoring wafted from the other side of Mehta Mansion. This was Mr. Mehta, who would complain next morning to his buddies during morning walk that he didn’t get a wink of sleep that night. A few hours ago he had tossed and turned in bed and imagined the face of the man who had walked up to his cabin and threatened him to his face. He had had him thrown out of his office. To think of it he had once thought well of this man. He had known him as a boy for years. Of course he wasn’t going to pay the man for the orders, at least not at such a high rate. He could go to court if he wanted. Mr. Mehta’s lawyers would brand him an arsonist and lock him up. But the gall of the man. Slimy slum dweller. Can’t trust these people. How did he dare to set the factory on fire? He needs to be taught a lesson for this. Mr. Mehta turned to the life-sized marble idol of Goddess Lakshmi that stared so benevolently from the other side of the room and folded his hands in prayer. Then he tossed and turned a couple more times before finally succumbing to sleep. He dreamt of rows and rows of machines and smiled to himself.

The phantom on the wooden cart looked steadfastly at the window behind which Mr. Mehta lay dreaming of machines. A cat jumped from the ceiling and settled at the window. It licked its paws and looked at the familiar figure of the phantom. A while later it jumped across the whitewashed walls, landed on the jeep parked outside and casually walked up to the phantom. It purred and rubbed its back against the trouser legs of the phantom. The phantom reached out his hands and patted the cat. The shawl that was wrapped around his head fell off and exposed a sharp profile that stood out in the moonlight. He too thought about the events at Mr. Mehta’s office and how he had been shown the door. He felt himself shiver in rage and his limbs became taut with tension. But he did not move from the wooden cart for a long time. How strange that this was the man he had secretly idolized in his boyhood. How long ago as a gawky teenager he had followed him one night straight to his home. And what prompted Mr. Mehta to offer him a job that night? How he had worked for years, toiled everyday at his service, grateful for the one chance that he had been offered in life. How could it all have turned out this way? He got up from the cart and began to turn back and leave. Did a voice just call out his name? It was the guard with the bushy moustache. Tall and stout, with the moon behind him, Sunil could make out his dark outline like a cardboard with a missing cutout. In the darkness one couldn’t make out his expression. Sunil walked up the familiar road all the way up to the man with the bushy moustache. The guard walked slowly towards him too, with steady steps. With his huge hands he suddenly grabbed Sunil’s arm and embraced him. Sunil felt tears in his eyes yet couldn’t help a smile. The guard patted him on his back. Sunil shook his hands and they stood there for a while before Sunil left the tall guard with the bushy moustache and went on his way farther up hill.

He turned around the old house of the Parsi merchant of yesteryears and saw how the great banyan tree had grown with time and spread its roots wherever it found space. An owl hooted from the top of the tree and noted the passing of the phantom to other nocturnal animals in the vicinity. The dog of the old house let out a shrill howl and soon all neighborhood dogs began to howl, till one of the irritated Parsi ladies of the neighborhood got up reluctantly from her bed and bid her dog to shut up. The phantom now was almost out of posh precincts of Malabar hills. He made out the well lit main roads in the distance and advanced towards them. The streets were not deserted of course. There was car that was bleating out club music rather loudly, like an animal in distress. The four people inside the car were rather drunk but were in no mood to go home just yet. At the signal on the main road a hawker was selling tea. Two cars had parked next to him. Sunil could see an arm extended from one of the windows of one of the cars (a black Ford model). It was the hand of woman. The bangles of her left hand shone in the street lights. She had a cigarette between her fingers. She was in the back seat of the car. A man emerged from the front seat of the car and spoke loudly to the hawker. He took out what looked like a big fat note and gave it to the hawker who beamed. The hoarding behind them advertised butter. Another one in the background vaunted a popular television series. A cop car pulled over next to the Ford car. The cigarette touting hand of the lady promptly disappeared into the car. After a while the Ford car drove away followed by the cop car. Sunil had crossed the main road and was now standing right next to the hawker. He took one of the side alleys lined by old houses that had been around for so many years. As he went deeper into the alley, he could see a few people sleeping on the pavement. Then there were about half a dozen small shanties made out of plastic sheets and were staying inside. Some of these people were migrant workers from other parts of the country. There were a few new building that were coming up in the vicinity, and these people worked for low wages during the day time and sometimes even at night. The street light had been turned out by some ingenious shanty dwellers and every seemed asleep at the moment. Yet the moonlight was so bright that Sunil could make out all the shapes.

At the end of the street was a small temple. Near the gates of the temple, upon the steps that led up to the prayer chamber, there lay two dogs. As Sunil walked by them one of them raised its ears and took note of Sunil. It wagged its tail slowly, stretched its legs and yawned. Next to the temple was a restaurant that sold Chinese food. It was a very run down establishment. A couple of unstable tables were laid outside. On one of the tables a fat man was asleep. He had a huge belly that expanded and contracted as he snored. The roof was made of corrugated sheets and an old rusty sign hung from the sheet that said “Chinese Garden” with a beautiful red Chinese dragon painted across the sign. The restaurant had been around for many years now. There was a time back in the 70s and the 80s when the restaurant was quite well know. Office goers would come over for a quick lunch. Nowadays the neighborhood had many other alternatives for the office goers. Fast food centers, posh restaurants serving different kinds of cuisines, food courts, counters that served pure vegetarian buffet meals; there was every sort of place to have lunch. The office goers had long forgotten the Chinese Garden. The place now sold cheap liquor with Chinese food and mainly catered to the migrant workers in the neighborhood. At night there would be the occasional ruckus with drunkards shouting at each other. Sometimes cars would stop near Chinese Garden to pick up liquor and take away Chinese food. The menu was displayed on a tin sheet but it was too dark to read. It hung desolately from a tree and swayed in the breeze. Behind the tree there was dark a pathway that seemed to lead nowhere. Sunil slipped into the restaurant and made for the dark pathway. In the moonlight he could make out a door some distance away that was left slightly ajar. He quietly walked into the door.

It was only a small room inside. With the light coming in from the window one could make out the shape of a lady sleeping on a rug on the floor. Next to her was a little girl who held on to the lady in her sleep. A fan whirred next to the lady – it rotated from side to side. There was an old, cast iron table next to the rug on which was a kept a small TV set and a little, plastic doll. There was a small stool next to it. Above the table was a clothes line that ran the length of the room, on which were hung some clothes. There was a stove at the end of the room and around it were kept pots and pans. Sunil tiptoed into the room and walked towards the table. He sat on the stool and took of his shoes. The sleeping lady seemed to have heard him for she raised her head and looked up towards him. She loosened herself from the clutches of the sleeping child and sat up. She supported herself on her elbows at first and made sure with her free hand that the little girl was wrapped nicely in a blanket, and then she gradually sat up straight and placed her arms around her knees. Sunil could see that the right side of her face and body was lit up with the light coming in from the window on her side. The ends of her saree had fallen off her shoulders and her dark, bare shoulders glistened in the moonlight. Her loose hair fell upon her shoulders. For sometime they sat looking at each other in the darkness. She only saw him at night these days she thought. He came in like a zombie and slept next to her. And then before day break he was gone. Moti the portly restaurant owner told her he was in some trouble with his creditors. Sunil hardly spoke to anybody about it. She had warned him about the risks hadn’t she? But this one was a dreamer. He wouldn’t be sitting content. He dreamt of his own factory, his own sprawling business. She rubbed her eyes and let out a yawn and stretched out her arms. Sunil got up swiftly and in a moment. He held her face in his hands and pushed her head into the rug. Had he been listening to her thoughts? His mouth opened as though he was trying to say something to her. His lips were moving but the words were stuck somewhere in his throat. His eyes screamed at her. It seemed as though that he would scream any moment and wake up the neighborhood with his outcry. His body trembled with rage that it brought tears to her eyes. How she echoed his emotions. How he would make her laugh like no other. How he could make her cry. How the world tormented him, she wondered. She put his arms around him and ran her fingers through his thick, matted hair. He broke down into sobs. Now she had another baby to console she thought. She ran her fingers down his spine and he began to respond. His face was wet with tears, his brows were creased and he made love to her with such anguish. Then she ran her fingers upon his chest and he looked calmly at the moon staring at him through the window. His eyes closed and he dreamt of whitewashed walls and gardens.

Chapter 17 - The Factory

The next morning they were in Mr. Mehta’s ageing car, driving to his factory, or what remained of it. The atmosphere in the car was solemn, almost funereal. The air-conditioning in the car whirred in an effort to break the silence in the car. Mr. Mehta who looked sullen might have woken up in the wrong side of his bed and Maan was in no mood to go. The driver of the car had an upturned moustache much like the guard outside Mr. Mehta’s house. Abhijit, who sat in the front, seemed quite amused. He felt sure that Mr. Mehta also had a gardener and a cook with upturned moustaches. He tried to imagine the maids in Mr. Mehta’s house all with upturned moustaches and then he stared back at Mr. Mehta, sitting in the back of the car and noticed the abject nakedness of his upper lip. His lips seemed to quiver like the petals of a rose (what was it, the ‘Provence’ rose?) and lacked the resoluteness of the rest of Mr. Mehta’s physiognomy. Surely he must have had a moustache in his youth. In fact he really felt like asking Mr. Mehta his opinion about moustaches and where he had got all his mustachioed employees. He imagined Mr. Mehta making a trip to the deserts of Rajasthan and picking up camel-loads of employees with upturned moustaches. He could visualize a queue of men in front of Mr. Mehta, who sat in a bench under a large umbrella saying, “No your moustache is not thick enough, next please!” At that moment Mr. Mehta’s lips quivered, and his fingers instinctively scratched where his moustache should have been. Maan of course was trying to look as disinterested as possible. He looked like a petulant child who had been forced into the car that would take him to school. Abhijit had appeared early in the morning to Maan’s place to Maan’s disbelief and horror. Maan had opened the door saying, “No it can’t be”.
Abhijit had replied, “But it is!”
To which Maan had waved his hand and said, “Go away, you are a dream” and had tried to close the door.
But like a smart salesman Abhijit had put his foot in at the right moment and shoved his way into the house saying, “We are such stuff, as dreams are made on, And our little life, is rounded with a sleep.”
Maan muttered something like, “Exactly, and I need my sleep”, but he knew he would have to go along with Abhijit.

Forthwith, they reached the factory and it looked quite charred. Mr. Mehta’s lips quivered even more and Maan felt very sorry for him. The courtyard that led to Mr. Mehta’s main office had had a small garden, which was charred too. The office building looked relatively unscathed but the workshop was in ruins. Maan knew only too well about all the machinery in it and the effort that had gone in to procure the machinery and erect the plant. The roof had caved in as though someone had dropped a giant bowling ball from the sky. The left side of the workshop, which stood two stories high, had incurred extensive damage as if the bowling ball had bounced a couple of times inside the workshop and had rolled out through the left side. Mr. Mehta stood with his hands on his hips and a pitiable expression on his face. He stood as if he had just the seen the ball roll out and now wanted the ball to roll on over him.
“It is him, who else!” he suddenly said and shook his head.
“Who?” asked Abhijit.
“Sunil. I don’t think you know him”
The name did shake Maan, like a child tugging at his trouser, but then surely there were a thousand Sunil’s in Mumbai.
But he had to ask, “What happened exactly?”
“It was very late at night. Bhole Ram was here”, and he pointed to his watchman. Abhijit couldn’t help a smile when he noticed that Bhole Ram had a moustache too. Bhole Ram came ambling towards them and gave them a salute. He had a bandage on his head and his face showed that he had been roughed up a bit.
“It must have been the police that roughed him up”, thought Maan. Then he asked, “Is he a witness?”
“No no. The scoundrel sneaked up from behind him and hit him on his head to knock him unconscious. It was around 11 pm according to Bhole Ram and he was sitting there by the gate. Bhole Ram stays there, right behind the office and somehow his home had escaped any fire. That is why the police had roughed him up a bit to find out the truth.” Maan smiled to himself.
Mr. Mehta continued, “I have known Bhole Ram for 30 years now and he is a man to be trusted. He says by the time he regained consciousness the place was already in flames. He gathered some neighbors and called me on the phone. But with all that inflammable stuff in the workshop you can imagine, it all happened very soon and there is very little one can do in such situations. The fire-brigade office is right here in Worli and they were here in no time. They could contain the fire from spreading too much. Some how the arsonist knew very well about the layout of the plant. He knew that portion of the shop floor where you dare not play with fire”. And he pointed to the left side of the workshop.

“The police even thought that it could have been something I had planned, and I got a call from Inspector Khan yesterday to discuss just this. I have already named Sunil and he is the only one who could have done this. Many of my plant workers in fact were quite sure about it. They saw him the previous day at my office. I had him thrown out. Can you imagine, he had come to see me! They marched up to his house and beat him up. I didn’t ask them to do it. But I think he deserves it. He stays quite close by, from what I hear.”
And he rolled up his sleeves as if he intended to go after Sunil himself.
“Have they arrested him then?” asked Maan.
“No, would you believe it, he is absconding. Saala Harami.. I wish I could lay my hands on him. Let me show you what he’s done.”

And they walked towards the workshop. Mr. Mehta was very animated as he described the damage in detail. The pillars of the workshop stood brazenly as if indicating that it was not because of them that the roof had collapsed. The broken fragments of the roof that had evidently dropped in from above blocked the metal staircase that led up to the upper floor of this two-storey workshop. Mr. Mehta showed the site of the explosion and explained why he felt it was not accidental.

“Here! This is where he came in. There was a wall here and he jumped over it. Then he came this way. The chemicals we use are explosive in nature but that is why we take precautions. The shop floor was closed and everybody had left. I myself was in office till around 8 in the evening. How could there have been a fire unless someone did it deliberately? That is what I have been telling to the police from the start. It couldn’t have been an accident.”
“Yes, that’s right Mr. Mehta. But there was a thunderstorm that night. Couldn’t it…or perhaps an electric spark or a short circuit?” asked Abhijit.
“That sort of thing can be determined by the police? Can’t they find it out?” asked Maan.
“Yes that’s what they are doing right now. They have all the evidence. In a way it doesn’t matter if it were caused by a thunderstorm. I would still be insured. But somehow I have a feeling it is he, Maan. It’s not all about the money that is lost in it, but about how he has brought down the place I have built over so many years. I want that swine caught and punished. Here we are. Come this way to the storeroom. It is underground and a lot of my stock is actually unaffected. They seem to have survived the fire.”
They took a dark narrow pathway that led to the basement of the workshop and Mr. Mehta took out from his pocket a small torch. He tried opening the latch.

The door latch seemed to have jammed and Mr. Mehta kept trying with his keys to loosen the latch. He shook the latch with all his might. The light from the torch reflected from the door and the latch, and exposed beads of perspiration from his forehead. Mr. Mehta had his silvered hair cropped very short and the perspiration made his hair shine in the reflected light. They waited and waited for what seemed like a very long time. It gave Maan time to wonder about it all. Was it really arson? Could it have been just an accident? What did Sunil have against this man? Is it the same Sunil that he had heard of? Why would he barge in to Mr. Mehta’s office the previous day? Why was he thrown out? Maan felt that he couldn’t have asked such questions, but he wanted to know the answers. Abhijit stepped forward quite gaily and asked Mr. Mehta to move away. He tried knocking the door, but Mr. Mehta stopped him with, “Ah! You will break the latch!”
Abhijit wondered to himself, “But isn’t that the point!”
For some reason both looked at Maan, and then Mr. Mehta started checking his cell phone for a signal.
“No signal”, said Maan. His face had lit up with the light from his cell phone. Mr. Mehta still had the light on the door. In the darkness, they heard a noise in the workshop. They were silent and listened. The noise approached the pathway and then it stopped abruptly.
“He must have noticed the light”, thought Maan.
At the same time, Mr. Mehta turned around and shouted, “Who’s there?”

Both Abhijit and Mr. Mehta ran up the pathway to check who it was. They had been gone a while, when Maan standing in the darkness noticed someone walking down the pathway. He walked down noiseless and effortlessly, his feet barely touched the floor. But he hadn’t yet seen Maan. As he passed Maan, Maan held him from behind and the intruder was caught by surprise. He was tall and powerful and Maan felt that in a moment, as he held Maan’s hand in a vice like grip, pried open Maan’s arms from around him and turned to face Maan. He tried to punch Maan in the face but Maan swayed away. So he held Maan by his hands and kicked him in the stomach with his knee. Maan winced with pain and fell down to the ground. The intruder stood and stared at him. It was pitch dark but yet he stood and stared at him. Was he waiting for Maan to make a noise, or shout for help? Then he ran away just as noiselessly as he had come. As he was lying down in pain Maan noticed in his pocket a sharp instrument. He took it out and remembered it. It was the knife with the engraved handle. Mr. Mehta’s voice could be heard approaching from a distance. The sound echoed in the open workshop. He was saying, “I am sure I heard someone. This is so strange.”
Maan stood up and brushed off the dirt from his shirt. He started opening the latch with his knife.
“It must have been a cat. Ah! Where did you find that thing? What’s the matter? Are you ok?” said Abhijit.
“Nothing. I slipped and fell down”, said Maan.

The sharp edge of the knife glistened in the torchlight. The latch opened. Mr. Mehta walked into the storeroom and showed the array of batteries in the storeroom.
“This part of it has not been harmed by the fire. And I have quite a bit of raw material here too.”
As the torch swayed around the room, it sometimes fell on the distant corners of the room that were so far away. The light lit up rows of stacked up containers, barrels and the like. The room was quite big in its dimensions and the storehouse seemed to contain a lot of material.
“Can you have it shifted out of here?” asked Maan.
Mr. Mehta stopped abruptly as he was walking in the storeroom and said, “You are right. There must have been someone up there. You have never been to this part before Maan, have you?”
“No”, said Maan from the far end of the storeroom. “He must have left something that he came back for.”
“What? I can’t hear you”, asked Mr. Mehta.
“Nothing. Have the police inspected this part of the storeroom?”
“Yes I believe so.”
“Ok lets go”, said Maan, with finality and started walking towards the exit of the storeroom. “Why am I getting involved in this?” he wondered.

They walked out into the sunlight and found Bhole Ram waiting for them with an umbrella. Mr. Mehta came up panting and motioned for Bhole Ram to hold the umbrella to his head. Then he started walking towards the office building, with Bhole Ram trailing behind him holding the umbrella to his head. Abhijit found it rather curious and couldn’t suppress a smile. The sun was beating down on them so ferociously that Abhijit decided to follow Mr. Mehta to his office. But Maan stood rooted to where he was.
“Aren’t you coming in with us”, asked Abhijit.
“No I have an errand to run. Let me catch up with you later today. I will call you I promise. Please tell Mr. Mehta I am sorry and I have something really urgent to attend to,” and he turned around and walked away without giving Abhijit a chance to respond. Maan’s original intention was to leave for home. He had no mind to get involved in what was to follow. Mr. Mehta would draw an elaborate list of claims that he would be making from the insurance company. They would discuss plans for reconstruction, damage to machinery, cost for repair, purchase of new machinery, schedules, costs involved, current orders, future orders, etc. There would be follow-ups and meetings and discussions. This is exactly what Maan had been running away from and he was in no mood to be sucked into it. At least not right now. He wanted to go back home, but why was he walking the other way? He checked himself and turned around to walk towards where he could catch a taxi. But there was something in his mind that annoyed him very much. He decided he had to find out and he turned back resolutely towards Kamala’s home. How long was it since he had been there? Must have been a few weeks. Who knows? Maan had lost all sense of time. Would he go in there again through those narrow alleys? He remembered Manoj and how he had helped him up when he had tripped and fallen down. He remembered the smile on Manoj face. Why did he feel so annoyed at Manoj? He brushed aside his thoughts and suddenly noticed how deserted the place seemed. It was the same narrow alley in which he had seen so many people. There were kids playing, old ladies sitting outside, young men doing their ablutions before a running tap, women drying chilies. There was so much activity the last time he had been there. He remembered with dread how he had walked with the old man, how he had felt knocked around by passersby, perhaps even laughed at.
“It must have been a different time of day”, he reasoned to himself, as he kept walking. Yet it was strange that all the doors were closed and even the windows were shut.

The houses were cringing from fear, weren’t they? The houses were trying to look elsewhere, trying to seem not to care. Here and there he would see friendly stray dogs wagging their tails enjoying the complete emptiness of the place. One of them walked up to him and sniffed him. It seemed to ask, “What’s up buster? What are you doing here?” An election poster hung from the street lamp was swaying in the wind. The poster had probably been there for a while since the elections were over a long time ago. Besides, it was nobody’s business to climb up the street light and bring down the poster. The face of the leader smiled a cloying, officious smile and he had his hands in a trademark ‘namaste’. There were messages in 3 languages beside the face, extolling him and asking for votes. It was a common sight in Mumbai and usually Maan would not even have noticed the poster and the politician in it. Yet at that time, in the complete absence of human beings, the poster raised a poignant question in Maan’s mind. Whom will he ask for votes from now that everybody is gone? As if on cue, the dogs barked in the background. Maan turned around and waved at the dogs and the dogs wagged their tails in return. Maan passed the election poster and noticed at the end of the alley a patch of khaki color. He knew at once why nobody was in sight. As he walked towards the mossy house at the end of the alley he noticed many policemen clad in khaki. These were of course the constables, waving their rods, adjusting the caps and spitting pan into the mossy walls of the house. They were obviously not enjoying standing in the heat. One of them cracked a joke and the whole pack of constables started laughing to it. The inspector must have been inside. As Maan walked towards them, they stopped laughing and looked at him curiously. They didn’t expect anyone in the alley, especially not someone that looked like Maan.

Chapter 16 - Scribbling on Paper

She was scribbling onto her notebook. Beneath her pen, figures of different shapes and sizes came to life. On that piece of paper, among the horizontal lines with nothing to read between them and the company logo on top trying to escape from the boundary of the page, she could play creator. She drew a girl rather wiry and slender, standing with her hands hanging from the shoulders like sticks. In one hand she drew a beautiful ladies’ purse, the other one she left dangling with fingers reaching out for something she hadn’t yet drawn. She gave her beautiful long hair and a ribbon to tie it up neatly. On her face she pasted a sweet smile and to make her pretty she drew long eyelashes that would flicker in the most elegant and enchanting manner. She looked at the girl long and hard and felt her loneliness within the page. She gave her a nice home, some hills to go with it and the rising sun that would spread light into her life. In the white skies (oh how she wished she could color them blue), she created some clouds. Yet the wiry figure didn’t have a soul to share this happy scene with. So she drew her a companion, another wiry figure with dangling hands and pointy hair. The paper calendar with pictures of boats began to flutter with unusual excitement. Perhaps somebody had opened a window and let in some stray wind. The dates of the calendar popped out like bubbles and appeared before her like hovering helicopters.

“This is Tuesday, and I came to office and went back home. This Wednesday, and I came to office and went back home. This is yesterday and I had coffee with someone.”
And she looked around her instantly to see if anyone had heard her or seen the hovering dates in the air.
“Yesterday I didn’t want to meet him. He is a nice guy really.”
“Cough, cough”, somebody in the next cubicle coughed. Meenakshi decided it was too hazardous to try the Shakespearian monologue during office hours. So she penned her thoughts below the happy scrawny figures.

I don’t think I could describe him. I am not very good at that. I remember it was crowded at the coffee house. I feel so self-conscious going to the coffee house these days. I have been there so many times; I probably know every coffee cup in that place. But it’s the memory that place holds for me that frightens me. A bit like some of Mrs. Krishnan’s photo albums. Every time I go into her cabin it feels like I am encroaching into her family space. Two little kids play with balloons right behind her. The bald man sits next to her with his arms around her. She, looking at the bald man after every sentence, waiting for that practiced scratch of the French beard to indicate he was mulling it over followed by his serene smile of approval. And if I were to say something she didn’t like, I can almost see both of them scowling at me at the same time, even the kids running up to me trying to burst their balloons over my head. I get the same feeling in the coffee shop.

Even the waiter gave me that curious look, asking me what I was doing in that place with someone else. He took the orders with a smirk.
He said, “What will you have today?” and it sounded like a reproachfully avuncular “What’s wrong with the world today?”
He said, “Should I bring you the Iced Café Mocha?” and it sounded like “Should I tell him all about it?”
He asked, “What about you sir?”” and he silently added the “Who the hell are you anyways?”
He brought the coffee with a vengeance and even the coffee cups curled their lips and let out an “Ewww… look at her” and turned away their faces from her, like the plastic beauties at Sophia college.

In between we spoke some sentences to each other. Sentences like line graphs that rose up with rising investor confidence and dropped down when the earnings didn’t meet market expectations. Every sentence overlapping another, taking a different shape but always dipping down in the end, fading away into oblivion. I must have annoyed him a bit forever looking nervously to my left, as if Maan was sitting there next to me like he usually does, shaking his legs and knocking his knees against mine all the time. He glanced that way again and again. Sometimes it seemed both of us were speaking to an invisible Maan, with me looking nervously to see if Maan’s expression changed and he following my gaze every time. I could picture the invisible Maan enjoying all this with a sinister smile on his face. He has two different smiles you know. The beatific smile when he is looking at the sea or sometimes when he is just watching me do something else. Then there is the sinister lopsided smile with his big eyes the one that tells you that he knows everything you are thinking. Wish I could take a paper napkin and wipe that smile of his face, along with that speck of sandwich bread sticking to the corner of his mouth. Ram tried his best with the line graphs, but then eventually even he sat back and grew silent like me. After a while we were in different worlds I think. Atleast I was.

Until the waiter came back, placed the receipt and said, “Anything else?” but meant, “Hope you are done with this charade.” I don’t think I am going back to that place. But it has become such a habit, going to that coffee shop. It’s what happens to lovers having a tiff. They say they will never see each other again and then they are back again. It’s what happens to some married couples that have been married so long that both have learnt that no matter how much they quarrel they will still come back to each other. It gives them a perverse pleasure in saying things like “I am leaving and won’t come back ever” and the response, “Yes, don’t come back”. Then you hear the door banging and a long silence after which she is in her room sniffling and speaking with her sister or best friend and he is watching TV and thinking if he has been too rude to her. Hours later, after the mandatory dramatic scenes have been enacted they are back to that familiar status quo. Then there are those scary situations when it doesn’t really end in status quo. When one actually leaves and never returns. Both wait for each other and neither makes any attempt at reconciliation. They separate and live separately for so long that they eventually learn to live without each other.

We left the café and he asked to meet me on Saturday evening. I said I would think about it. I don’t think I noticed anything unpleasant about Ram. But then I don’t think I noticed him much. Kept thinking why Mom had pushed me into this. I told her I needed some more time, but then she said “Just meet him once for coffee, he is a nice boy.” This is it; I have seen him for coffee now. Does it mean anything? He did seem the proverbial nice boy. Something in his demeanor made one feel very comfortable in his company. He is not the one who would bowl you over by his charisma. No he isn’t anything like Maan. But he might be that nice, homely person, the very marriageable kind whom most girls would prefer to get married to.

I can’t blame Mom really. She has been worried about me. The last time we met I had lost some weight and had that puffed up face with an unconvincing smile plastered upon it that valiantly tries to deny what is so obvious to everybody else. She saw through the ruse with the same expert instinct with which she can tell the cook that the ‘dal’ needs some salt without even tasting it. It felt so nice going back to her and hugging her. Felt so safe and secure. And I could see the reflection of my sadness in her face. Like it happens when we find empathy and understanding, tears that had welled up in my eyes for days streamed down ceaselessly. I wasn’t crying so much for what I had been through in the preceding few weeks, but for what I had only just realized. That no matter what happens my mom and dad would always be by my side. Poor Maan never had that privilege. I don’t know why I am not so angry with him and despite all that has happened still wish him well. I know he never really intended to hurt me. That he was probably just as angry with himself as I was with him.

My father never understood that. He had inquired about me from Mom and heard it all from her and he proceeded to preach me with that familiar tone in his voice that I have grown so accustomed to hearing since I was a little girl. It’s a tone of voice so absolute that it permits no difference of opinion. I was in no mood to play the role of the rebellious girl that I have been playing for a few years now. I don’t want to hurt them anymore. He was really concerned about me, and even asked me to return from Mumbai. It is something I have been contemplating seriously. The impermanence and transience of Mumbai is getting a bit tough for me to handle. Mumbai doesn’t just move fast, it ‘moves on’ even faster. The beggar on the street cries out loud and the cars move on as fast as they possibly can. A girl is raped in the local train in front of so many passengers but people are too busy to even notice. The heavens pour in so much rain that many lose their lives and so many are rendered homeless. But the next day, Mumbai has already moved on and forgotten all about it. This city must have a very short memory. It is a city always looking forward, thinking about its bright future. A bit like Maan, I think. This city is not for people like me with immaculate memories. How every date sticks to my mind like a post-it note, complete with all necessary details. How all the things we did are so indelibly inserted into my memory. How even the coffee cups speak to me. How the rocks that hold together Nariman Point, seem to be falling apart these days. How the little boy who served so many cups of tea is nowhere to be seen these days.

May be I really should accept the job offer in Chennai and go back home to the warm embrace of Mom and the steady, unconditional permanence it has to offer. Even the heat and humidity of Chennai is so unwavering and relentless. It is something that would never abandon you. The perspiration never leaves you; clings to you so reassuringly like a motherless puppy dog. Chases you around wherever you go. Adopts you as its mother and sticks to you so that you can never shake it off you. What is it that they say about the Chennai auto drivers? Atleast the auto drivers would always be so consistent in their mendacity. They will always try to cheat you whenever you let down your guard and begin to trust them. Every election would bring down the ruling government. The new Government would promptly reverse all the policies. All work in progress would be promptly undone. New policies would be implemented which would, of course, again be reversed after 5 years. Nobody is even surprised by it. They all expect it to happen, like they expect it to rain during the monsoon season. Chennai is just so dependable. Even when it lets you down you somehow always knew that it would let you down.

Yet it feels nice to hold on to the memories. These are happy memories. And it is tough to run away from these memories. I like to be reminded of them these days. I might smile to myself while I am reminiscing and the person in front of me might grow unnerved and wonder if I was really smiling at him/her. The city of Mumbai is special perhaps because of these memories. So many millions live here, live through such hardship and all of them perhaps sustain themselves through the fuel of their personal happy memories besides of course of the hope that things will one day get better. You could call it a sea of collective memories. May be even I have my personal hope that I still cling on to. A vague, intangible thing, this hope is. It understands no logic. It ignores common sense. It would certainly flunk all possible tests in science courses in schools. Surely hope must be a student of the arts, vividly imaginative and so irrepressible. Hope is what the teachers in class call “a hopeless case.” You can imagine the parents of hope meeting up the teachers during a Parents Teacher’s Meeting. The teacher would say, “No future for Hope if he continues this way.” The concerned parents would mutter, “But, but, he is such a bright cheerful boy…” and the teachers would shake their heads grimly saying “No hope for Hope”. At home the parents would point at all the red marks on the report sheet and scold Hope left and right. They would try to beat some sense into his head. Hope would look at them teary eyed, refusing to believe a single word being said to him. Hope would admit no self-doubt. Hope would see amid the several red marks a few glistening blue marks. Hope would crawl back to his room and draw scrawny stick people on his science homework sheet.

Meenakshi scratched off the scrawny stick girl and boy she had drawn. She blackened every feature of her face ruthlessly with her pen. She scratched the pen so hard that it must have hurt the poor stick girl. Yet it was obvious from Meenakshi’s face, who was hurting more. She drew black teardrops leaking from the girl’s eyes. She drew a dark sky with dark clouds and big black drops of rain. As she stared at the stick girl she felt this indescribable sadness overwhelm her. She felt a sharp pain in her chest and an intolerable feeling of vacuity in herself. As if there was a hole in her. As if her whole world would collapse into the singularity of that black hole within her. Tears streamed down from her eyes and mingled with the black rain from the black skies in her drawing. The face of the stick girl dissolved into the dark cesspool along with her lovely eyelashes and beautiful long hair. The pretty, innocent girl who only knew happiness was now gone for good. Dissolved in the dirty cesspool of hopelessness. She had this terrible desire to cry out loud at the world. Her face contorted to let out a terrible scream of anguish. But there was no sound. Only tears dropping from her eyes.

The voice in the next cubicle went “Cough, cough”.
She crumpled the paper and held it tightly in her fist. Then she methodically tore it into pieces and dropped it into the waste paper basket. She wiped the tears from her eyes with a determined deliberateness and went back to her work.

Chapter 15 - The Dust

Dust had begun to gather on Maan and his cozy apartment. The shining floor, the beautiful rug, the couch and many other pieces of furniture had covered themselves with a blanket of dust. They refused to hear the constant knocking on the door. Maan slept in darkness that day, the curtains drawn to hide the bright outside. He had lain there for so long, he couldn’t quite remember how long. Vaguely he remembered picking up the newspapers strewn on the floor and flinging them on to the couch, and depositing the bottles of milk that had been standing outside like nosey neighbors, into the frigid confines of the kitchen refrigerator. He remembered the constant ringing of his cell phone, and the persistent voice of Mr. Batliwala, the big boss, say, “Maan can you come over to office? There is an urgent matter and I need you to look into it immediately.” Maan mumbled into the phone in a sleepy drone that he wasn’t well and hung up immediately after. There were more phone calls. Many unknown numbers, many numbers that looked like they were from his office, some phone calls from friends, even a couple of phone calls from Mona. In his deep sleep Maan would half notice the phone in the corner of the room blink its blue light intermittently and wail like a hungry baby. Lately Maan noticed that this wailing baby had finally died, and he sighed in relief. Sometimes he would open his eyes and wonder how little he could live by. That he needed no food, no society, no work to keep him busy, no memories, no family even. In his dreams he often saw photographs of his parents, his father with a bushy moustache, and his mother with a vermillion streak that lined her neatly parted hair. They were sitting next to each other, with a little space between them to let in the orange sun behind them. Where was that photograph taken, a hill station? Was it Darjeeling? They were so young, like the painting on the Grecian urn. He would see the photograph flutter away through the open window towards the sea, and wake up with a start to find that the window was indeed closed. Sometimes in his dreams he saw his uncle, smiling at him and patting his shoulder. He saw himself as a child of 14, scrawny and silent as a stone. Other times he would dream about the blue eyes, those mysterious blue eyes. Peering at him with a coldness that constantly mocked him. Maan saw the possessor of those eyes, as he had seen him in the elevator. Motionless. But there was a tension in his limbs, like the tension of a coiled spring. Was he about to strike?

Maan turned over in his bed and reached out for the bottle of water that lay just within his reach. Then he stared at the ceiling fan, turning slowly with tiresome regularity. The light from the edge of the curtain created a curious effect on it. The shadow of the blades would grow longer as if to reach for the window and then they would constrict gradually till they were back again. Like Maan, even the blades of the fan had gathered dust. The bed, the mattress, the blanket and the cupboard too had gathered a dust of apathy, and gloomy unconcern. He had stopped thinking about the consequences, about what would happen next. He began to wish to lie just where he was for the rest of his life, covered in a dust of obscurity and away from the eyes of the world. There was Batliwala’s kindly face and all his office colleagues. Why should he have to suffer them anymore? There were his friends, his close friends. But give it a while and they would forget him too. There was once a ‘someone else’, but he wouldn’t think about all that. The road to childhood was a one-way street. There was a beautiful house at the end of a narrow lane, but that existed only in a photograph these days. There was now a wall on the narrow lane and the beautiful house was obscured from view. He saw himself driving on the expressway and there were so many cars along with him. They drove on for miles and miles, no exit in sight. But even if there were an exit what difference would it make. Why would he ride on like that with everybody else? What if he refused to ride on? What if he stopped his car and refused to start it again? There was no destination after all, why all this fuss? Why not stop this charade right here?

In the corner of the room, the TV begged haplessly for help as winds lashed the TV screen.
“As wind-swept rains lashed several parts of the state, road traffic and communication networks went haywire. It was breezy and chilly in New Delhi as the capital experienced light showers and an overcast sky throughout the day.”
Maan put down the bottle of water and looked blankly at the TV screen. The pretty news reporter spoke to the camera. In the backdrop were people skirting puddles of water and balancing their umbrellas against the pouring rain.

Last week, office colleagues had dropped in out of curiosity. “Your cell phone was dead”, they explained. There were four of them, and when they were together they usually made a lot of noise.
“How have you been buddy?” asked Vishy.
“Good. Very good in fact”, smiled Maan.
The conversation began like the spluttering engine of an unused car. But soon the conversation meandered to office politics and gossip. That was familiar ground. There was always something funny going on. Everybody was after all a caricature, some more than others. Maan wondered if they laughed at him when he was not there. They decided to go on a little jeep ride, pick up some booze on the way and listen to music over the car stereo. A few drinks later Maan was just as boisterous as them, shouting himself hoarse to be heard above the din of the loud music. It was a nice reprieve, from his self-imposed solitude. For sometime he almost belonged with them, looked like them and even felt like them. For sometime he didn’t ask questions, instead went along with everyone else. They stopped for gas, and before they knew it they were dancing in the gas station. They must have made a scene. But this was typical; they had stopped at the oddest of places before and done a little dancing to music many times before. The world won’t laugh at them. The world was to be laughed at. Everything was funny. Nothing had to make sense. You just had to have a good time. But the sun would rise sometime later and the revelry would have to be tucked into a briefcase for some other time. They had their families and friends to go home to. Maan went home to his blanket of dust.

The TV spoke to him, as dreams do to a sleeping man.
“The minimum temperature was 13.2 degrees Celsius, four degrees below normal.”
“Are you speaking with me?” Maan smiled and said.
“Delhi saw heavy rainfall on Saturday night”
“It was quite fine here on Saturday night. I think. Heck, when was Saturday night?”
“Accompanied by thunder, lightning and strong winds.”
“Too bad. May be you should move to Mumbai.”
“The wet spell will continue for the next three days.”
“You never know, pretty girl. The wet spell may go on forever. Shall I pick you up at the airport then?”
“… uprooting trees, snapping telecommunication lines and crippling normal life”
“ Crippling normal life. Normal crippling life. Sometimes you don’t need uprooted trees, and snapped lines to cripple normal life. First of all let me ask you, is there such a thing is as normal life? How different is it from abnormal life?”
The doorbell rang.
“There is my answer.”
Maan walked up to the door feeling unusually light. He opened the door, and Abhijit walked in like the cool breeze.
“Abhijit, how different is abnormal life from normal life?”
“Normal life was last seen on earth in 1975. It has been extinct since.”
“Right after you were born?”
“Precisely! You look pretty normal today. What is wrong with you? I thought I would find you scuba diving in the bathtub. You disappoint me.”
“Scuba diving is too taxing. I have been fishing mainly”, said Maan and laughed.
“Good.”

Abhijit walked up to the couch, sat upon it and planted his feet on the center table. He stretched out his hands and gave out a yawn.
“I have slept for a week or so. Straight!” said Maan.
“It’s contagious, stay away.”
Abhijit took the TV remote and turned on the Sports Channel and started watching some cricket match.
“In case you are wondering why I came here, I came here to watch TV. Don’t assume that I actually came to see you”, said Abhijit.
“Good then may be I’ll get back to my fishing.”
“Sure.”
“What’s up Abhijit?”
Abhijit started laughing. Maan gave him a quizzical expression and sat down in the chair next to him.
“You broke somebody’s heart in office. No chick this time, its Big Boss. I met him in office and he was sulking in the corner of his cabin scratching his beard.”
Abhijit scratched the imaginary beard on his chin to show what he meant. Maan scratched his weeklong beard too.
“Then he looked at me from the corner of his eye and shook his head. It was about the Mehta incident. Oh you don’t know. Some guy incinerated his factory. That factory is your baby Maan, didn’t you work on that one? Of course old Mr. Mehta won’t talk with any of us. He is so impressed with you. Everybody wants Maan. What’s wrong with people? By the way, I heard Mehta has a pretty daughter. I am sure you have your eye on her. Oh look at you blush. The look on your face says it all. You handle this one Maan, and you might win his daughter’s hand in reward. Big Boss said that you banged the phone on him and I completely believe him. That’s so bad of you, Maan. Poor guy has been in such bad humor all week. Your lovely face would cheer him up so much.”
“Forget it”, said Maan and yawned, “Right now I want to sleep some more.”
Abhijit disregarded his comments as one does a flitting fly.

In ten minutes they were in Abhijit’s car driving down marine drive. Abhijit drove in the middle of the road at his own leisurely pace.
“Buddy, you do not own the road unfortunately”, said Maan.
“Yes I do!”
And he drove even slower, and they watched other cars overtake them.
“I won’t be surprised to see a bullock cart overtake us”, said Maan.
“May be you can hitch a ride with the bullock cart”, replied Abhijit and laughed.

Sometime later they were in Malabar Hills, at Mr. Mehta’s lovely sea facing house. It was evening already and there were some old people doing their evening walk. The road sloped upwards and buildings jutted out like the jagged edge of a saw. The senior citizens were obviously gasping for breath, some even felt their knees as they walked up the slope of the road. But it was a beautiful sight, surely one of the prettiest in Mumbai. Lovely houses, bougainvillea flowers white, red, yellow, purple were everywhere. Greenery enveloped the picturesque buildings like hair that curled around a maiden’s face. Gardens cluttered together and surrounded Malabar hills like chicks surround the mother hen. It seemed as if all the greenery of Mumbai had run away from the harsh reality of Mumbai life to take refuge in the quiet confines of Malabar hills. As Maan got out of his car, he spotted the sun as it was about to dip itself into the sea, like a round biscuit into a cup of tea. The huge gates of Mehta Mansion, was covered with shrubs. The white walls had just been whitewashed and of course there was a blanket of beautiful yellow and red bougainvillea flowers that covered it like a silk shawl would a white kurta. The gatekeeper was a thickset middle-aged man with a bushy moustache. He belonged to the scenery of the place and had been standing there for ages, ever since Mehta Mansion had sprung up from Malabar Hills like a plant sprouting from mud. His moustache curled up towards the heavens as he recognized Maan. The gate was duly opened for him and they were led to the beautiful lawn that clothed the seaward side of Mehta Mansion. They sat upon cozy cane chairs under a large lawn umbrella and looked towards the mansion waiting for Mr. Mehta to come and meet them.

Mr. Mehta didn’t keep them waiting too long. He came down the steps and greeted them with a welcoming smile. He had a good-humored face and close cropped silver hair. His cheeks puffed out slightly and his eyes were a bit droopy. He was dressed in a modest white traditional Kurta that he might have been wearing for ages. The sleeves were rolled up like that of a young man about to get into an argument. His attire underlined the dominant traits in his nature. His temperament was mercurial though age had mellowed him down a bit. These days he was generally good humored and happy.
“Good evening Maan. How have you been?”
He held his hand out towards Maan. Maan shook his hand and said, “Good evening Mr. Mehta. Meet my colleague, Abhijit.”
Tea was served and with every sip both Maan and Abhijit admired the beautiful lawn, and the bed of flowers. Mr. Mehta even began showing them his rose collection, naming the flowers one after another.

“This one is the Provence Rose. They have a hundred petals or so. See how pretty she is!”
Maan and Abhijit nodded.

When the cups of tea were emptied, the Provence rose disappeared into the background, the brows of Mr. Mehta assumed the shape of a desolate frown and his lips began to pout. He raised his hands and folded then behind his head, squinted his little eyes till they were littler than before, and scrutinized Maan’s physiognomy. Maan had seen him thus before, and it meant that Mr. Mehta had rambled enough and wanted to come to the point. For a while they discussed the damages, the time Mr. Mehta need to restart production, the insurance claim and other details.
“Perhaps we’ll survey your site tomorrow morning at 10?” said Abhijit and gave Maan a sinister smile.
Mr. Mehta nodded. Abhijit rose up from his chair and so did Maan. Maan didn’t speak a word till they were in the car.
He shut the door with a vengeance and said, “Why did you have to involve me again?”
“Oh come on. It’s only for a day. Then you can go back to your sleepy ways my dear Rip Van Winkle.”
They sped back to Marine Drive. The other side of the road was packed with cars that had come to halt. Horns bleared and tempers raged. It was peak hour for Mumbai traffic, and everybody save them was headed north. Maan smiled to himself thinking that next morning they might be the only one's heading north, while all the other people braved traffic to reach their offices in south Mumbai.

Chapter 14 - One night

There wasn’t a soul in sight that night. The moon like an impish child peaked between the clouds and the lonely, tortuous path was illuminated at once. The shadow of a brick wall fell sharply on the pathway as if to bar someone about to cross the way. A cat walked upon the brick wall and nimbly jumped across onto a corrugated tin roof. It climbed up the sloping roof and scaled the walls of a neighboring house. It stopped there to lick its paws and suddenly froze in fright. There in front of the cat was a shadowy man. Moments later red clouds came and covered the moon again. All shadows merged and the pathway was dark and unbarred again. The cat with his green eyes that can see through the veil of shadows, watched the man nimbly slide down the corrugated roof, hop onto the brick wall and jump down to the pathway. He looked back at the cat with his shadowy eyes and carefully scanned his surroundings to see if anyone else had seen him.

The houses slept on the shoulders of each other like a bunch of weary travelers huddled in a train together. They had their arms around each other. Some snored, others nodded their heads as the train jerked from side to side. Lights from the onlooking stations may blink throughout the night but the weary travelers can sleep through all that. The streetlights yawned and dizzy insects went around in concentric circles around the light. Occasionally the wind would shake the creaky doors and windows and sneak in through the gaps to make ghostly noises. A little child would stare with big eyes and then be reassured by his mother’s protective arms. Through the dusty windows he would see a shadowy man pass by like a dream. The child would close his eyes and dream about the shadowy man.

As he walked down the pathway, his footsteps left no footprint. The muddy puddle bore no imprint as he walked by, nor did the mud linger on to the soles of his old shoes. Even the pathway turned a blind eye to this passing shadow. There at the end of pathway the familiar old house with its mossy walls greeted him with a how are you. He reached out for the doorbell but stopped with a start. From his breast pocket he took out a cigarette and from his trouser pocket a lighter. As he lit his cigarette he watched the smoke billow in the distance. Red flames and billowy smoke. Then the faint echo of a siren. Some more red flames some more billowy smoke. He climbed up a mossy wall to take a closer look. There he crouched like an animal cringing with cold and puffed at his cigarette. The mossy door of the old house creaked open and a familiar figure appeared. She leaned against a wall and faced towards where she knew he would be.

“Dada, will you eat?”
He puffed at the cigarette and whispered a smoky no. He couldn’t look away from the red flames and the billowy smoke. In him surged a red flame and through him blew the smoke. He had his arms around his knees and he held himself lest he fall apart. The sinews of his hands bulged and his muscles grew tense from inner strain. His face was sharp and bony and his hair was dense and curly. As he crouched on a wall he looked like a coiled spring, ready to leap up towards the sky. His ears twitched at the distant sound of approaching commotion. He gave one last puff and tossed up the cigarette with a flick of his finger and watched it flip-flop in the sky like a diver from a diving board. In the distance the smoke billowed up to the red clouds in the sky. He came down from the wall, pushed Kamala in and locked the door.
“Is he asleep?” he asked.
“Yes”
He walked in like a shadow; he forever seemed to float. His feet barely touched anything, not the mosaic floor, not the old carpet. He walked over to the sleeping man’s door and latched him inside.
“I know something is wrong”, said Kamala.
“Shhh”
He walked up to the cot by the window and lay down on it waiting for what was to happen. Nothing happened for a while and all was silent in the room but for his eyes that sparkled in the dark.

In the distance the cat on the wall by the corrugated tin roof sat licking his paws. The pathway stood barred by the shadow of the wall for the moon was in sight again. They walked in one by one at first and then they crammed together. The cat craned his neck and watched them all in stunned silence. A few lights flickered awake in the houses that slopped over each other’s shoulders. They hastily extinguished themselves and pretended to be asleep. Then men poured in and collected themselves into every available space. They gushed in like water into the narrow pathway. The looked like one another. Each had a stick in his hand, some had torches too. Each had a snarl on his face, some had a snicker too. Each swelled with passion like a summer cyclone in the sea. They walked passed the shadowy barrier like it was never there. Their steps smudged the muddy puddles. They dragged the mud along and smeared the pathway with mud. Their footsteps left an imprint, their footsteps even sounded like footsteps. They spoke to each other in whispers. But with so much whispering they sounded like the howling wind. They didn’t have much to say, but they muttered to each other the same words over and over again. Each time they spoke the words, the words grew on them, and so they spoke some more. They blew in howling all the way to the mossy walls and the mossy door. They looked at each other’s face and nodded in agreement. They gathered themselves and arranged themselves like moss on a wall. Then they looked at the billowy smoke and something surged in them. So they knocked on the mossy door. But nobody replied so they knocked some more. Soon the knocking grew more persistent. They knocked more fervently and the door shook from side to side. It rattled and groaned like a rebellious youth being knocked about. The men joined their voices and in unison spoke out his name, “Sunil, Sunil, Sunil”. They said much more and mixed whatever they said with expletives for effect.

The door creaked open reluctantly. Darkness escaped through the opening door. So they strained their eyes and saw nothing inside until she appeared into the moonlight. They looked like they would shove her aside and barge into the house. But she didn’t notice that for she couldn’t see them, at least not with her eyes. But she sensed the swaying sticks and the bad intent. She opened the door wide open, barred their way and looked questioningly at them.
“Move away Kamala. Give him to us.”
“Why, what has he done?” she replied boldly.
“He set it on fire, that’s what he did the scoundrel”, one of them shouted back.
Kamala shook her head, and said, “But he has been here all along.”
But they pushed her aside and found him standing there waiting for them.
“I am coming out”, he said in his deep voice and walked out into the open outside. They surveyed him, held him with their eyes. He stepped forward, pushed away gently the men who crowded towards him and folded his arms defiantly. His tall dark figure stood starkly stationary, so poignantly immobile, like the hand of clock that has just struck the hour and decided to move no more. They stepped sideways, moved in sequence and soon they had surrounded him like roman numerals surround the hands of a clock. They stood like that for a while until one of them chanced to look at the billowy smoke in the distance and felt impelled by something inside him.
He screwed his eyes fiercely, forced himself within reach of Sunil and bit his words as he spoke them.
“You. You are done for. I will have your blood you bastard”, he said.
Without warning Sunil smote him on the face, and shook him with his blow. Blood splattered from his nose and he began to cough. Sunil held him by his collar and said,
“Watch your words with me.”
For sometime Sunil stood there holding his collar as blood dripped down from his nose and upper lip. They all stood around him watching his clenched fist that was ready to beat the bleeding man again.
Then someone struck Sunil on his head with a stick. Sunil held his head with both his hands and there fell upon him a deluge of sticks from all directions. They fell on him with synchronicity, as if the men had rehearsed every blow. As one stick was lifted from him another took its place. Sunil fell on the ground covering his head. They kicked him now with their muddy boots. When he lay flat on the ground they stamped him like one would a vermin.

Kamala rushed in to shield him from his blows. But they slapped her and pushed her away. The old man of the house beat violently at his locked door. Tears came to his old eyes as he imagined what was happening outside. But just as he had begun to yell for help, the commotion had stopped. Kamala came and opened the latch and he ran outside in panic to see what was going on. There on the ground lay a motionless Sunil. He had his head covered with his hands. He lay on his side with his knees against his chest, all wrapped up like an earthworm impaled by wanton boys. To a side his assailants stood in formation and in front of them stood Manoj waving his hands and requesting them to calm down.
“He was with me, guys, I swear! I took him out for a couple of drinks. He didn’t do it?” said Manoj.
He shook his head vigorously, and appealed to them with his open palms. They whispered among themselves, like leaves would rustle in the wind. One of them came forward and said, “He came and threatened Mr. Mehta today. Of course he did it!” Then he pointed his finger at Sunil who was still lying down and repeated loudly, “Of course he did it.” This stirred the others and they all began to swell with renewed passion and say, “Yes, yes he did it.”
Manoj folded his hands into a namaste and pleaded, “Calm down, please. Let me speak. The truth is he was with me this evening. I didn’t leave him out of my sight. That’s all.”
Manoj shook his head vigorously again and said, “I can’t say anything more. No I can’t. This is all I have to say. Look how he lies lifeless there on the ground. Now if you want to still beat him more, go ahead. I just wanted tell you the truth. I can’t do anything. No I can’t. You do what you want.”
For sometime they didn’t know what to do. They stared at each other’s blank faces, wondering what to do next. The old man knelt next to Sunil and shook him slowly. Kamala sat on the ground with her back on the muddy wall.
Manoj waved his hand at them and resumed, “Look now. Are you sated, or do you want to see more? Do us a favor now and go home? Leave us to our misery.”
One of them turned away to leave. Another followed. Soon they all turned to go down the narrow pathway, past the muddy puddle and the huddled houses. Red clouds followed the men and covered the moon on their way. The dark pathway lay unbarred and they walked out in a file leaving their imprints on the ground.
“Sunil are you alright, my son. Kamala get some water”, said the old man.
Sunil sat up, his face was bruised, his body was bloodied and there was mud all over him. In the distance the billowy smoke had begun to die down, like a cigarette on it’s last puff about to be stubbed into an ashtray. Manoj came over to him and pointed towards the dying smoke.
“So this is what you did tonight”, he said.
Sunil smiled and looked directly at Manoj with his shining eyes. “Of course not! I was out with you.” Then he began to laugh.

Back inside the mossy doors, they sat in a huddle. Sunil sat eating his dinner of chapattis and vegetables and the old man sat with cotton wool, attending to the bruises on Sunil face.
“Tough guy, just look at yourself. Your face is a swollen lump. What’s the point of all this Sunil? I am sure he is insured. Besides he won’t take this lying down. You’ll have the police chasing you like dogs now. What’s the point really? ”
Sunil pretended not to hear him and gobbled the chapatti down. There was a lump around his left eye and he scratched it softly. The old man blurted, “Don’t touch it, you blockhead.”
Then suddenly he turned to Manoj and said, “You won’t understand, Manoj, you won’t understand.”
Manoj turned to look at Kamala. She sat quietly on Sunil’s side. He wondered if she understood anything.

Chapter 13 - The Flying Fish

Mona was back in Mumbai after years. An early morning flight from Bangalore and a day full of meetings couldn’t dampen her spirits one bit. On the contrary, having finished the formalities of the day she had begun to feel as fizzy as the cold drink bottle in her hand.
“Monaaaaaa, you look so cute in your straightened hair”, said Meenakshi to her. Mona had come to pick Meenakshi up from office.
Mona had always had such thick, curly hair, that this radical change in appearance surprised everyone who knew her from before. Curly hair was something that sort of fit her personality for she was notoriously whimsical and absolutely intractable. To go with her originally curly, now straightened hair, she had big eyes and a ready smile that were quite adorable. Often she looked like a little doll with chubby cheeks that one would be tempted to squeeze. On this occasion she was dressed in a vivid pink top that made her look like a joyous flamingo about to take flight.

“Really?” she said and beamed. Dimples promptly appeared on her cheeks, and to Meenakshi she looked just like the Mona from college days.
“You are still such a baby!” said Meenakshi and laughed.
“Wow, such a lovely Kurta. My god you have lost so much weight. Dieting? And look at me. All the food that I eat attaches itself to my tummy! You look like a princess. Only a little sad! What happened? Work pressure or Maan pressure? There is nothing that a round of Pau Bhaji and Pani Puri can’t cure. Taxi, Chowpatty!”
“No, I can’t come to Chowpatty.”
“Yes, Chowpatty!”
Mona yanked Meenakshi into the taxi and before Meenakshi could realize what was going on, they were on their way to Chowpatty. A fish flew in through the taxi window like it did the night of the storm. The candles blew out on Mona’s cake and the windows swung open to let in a gush of cool wind and drops of rain. The coconut trees held on to each other and the gold fish flew right in through the window as if nothing was wrong.

“Did you see it Mona the gold fish flew in through the window.”
“Which fish. Oh that one. Ha ha nice one. Meenakshi you are nuts there is no fish here.”
“No there is, look under the bed it went there.”
“What! Nothing here under the bed. Ok you can stop laughing Meenakshi. No I didn’t fall for it. (crash). What was that? Meenu I am scared there are ghosts here. No stop that laugh you are scaring me Meenu.”
“Mona don’t you know about the ghost? It is the ghost of Pandey, the cute mailman who came to deliver mails and was never seen again. They say he killed himself in room 201. He was really cute they say. He had long hair and lovely eyelashes.”
“A ghost with lovely eyelashes. Meenu stop that crap. Are we the only two in hostel Meenu? I am so scared.”
“No there is someone else”
“Who?”
“Pandey! He is in room 201.”
“Uff Meenu. I’ll kill you.”
“Good. Then I can date Pandey. Do you think there is love after death? Ok ok you can stop hitting me with the pillow.”
“Meenu stop making that noise. No it’s not the fish. No I won’t check under the bed this time.”

“Mona where were you all these days? So good to have you back. Mona. Mona? Mona, get down from there. This is Chowpatty not your bedroom. No I am not coming up. You will fall down and drown. Do you know how many people fall down? Look you are dropping all the ice cream on your top.”
“Don’t you think the vanilla ice cream looks good on my pink top? Meenu when will you learn to chill! You look like a princess but you are really an Amma!”
“Wait let me show you who is Amma.”
“Meenu look your fish. Remember?”
“See I told you. There is my fish. You never believed me all these days.”
“Meenu you are nuts! That is the sea. There are billions of fish in the sea. But none under my bed, puhleez! There you are laughing at me again. Should have never showed you the fish.”

As they walked on, a fish flew right past them. Meenakshi saw it but said nothing. She smiled to herself, squeezed Mona’s hand and felt like she was among the clouds. The cars on the road felt miniscule and the billboards blinked at her like little children.

That night they decided to get drunk, like in the good old days. The neighborhood liquor shop sold good booze for less. The music system too begged to be played, and the CDs lay scattered invitingly on the bed. Old Mrs. Fernandes might have some noise to contend with that night and the Mehta’s might have some nice things to say the next morning. But it wasn’t every night that they partied.

“How is Maan?”
“God knows.”
Mona put her hand in Meenakshi’s.
“Don’t worry. He is a bit crazy in the head. But he is a good guy and he will be back. I know him very well. He will be back and the two of you will be together again.”
“Mona why don’t you come live here in Mumbai? Why are you in that sick Bangalore? I have heard all the pubs close by 11! A drunkard like you must have a hard time out there.”
“You bet! But we have this wonderful place in Bangalore, a lovely open terrace. Imagine drinking in an open terrace in full view of the stars and the moon. You must come stay with me in Bangalore.”
“You stay with your parents, how do you drink in the terrace?”
“Oh there are ways!” said Mona and laughed.
“My god! And your parents think you are this angel of a child, capable of no wrong. I must call up aunty and tell her all about your escapades.”
“See I told you. You are an Amma in disguise. Only an Amma can talk like that. You should take it easy sometimes. There is nothing wrong in a little bit of booze. Hic! Meenu why are you so sad? Ok you are not an Amma. Happy?”
“You are flying back in the morning Mona. Why couldn’t you stay longer? Wait, when I come to Bangalore next month, I’ll see you for coffee and I’ll take the evening flight back to Mumbai.”
“Oh it is my boss. I’d love to stay back for months. But my boss is such a baby! He needs to be helped with everything. Hic!”
“Your boss is a baby. Mona you are crazy!”
“No he is a baby. He is absolutely adorable. He has a moustache, is completely bald and has a Hollywood accent. I plan to gift him a Kurt Cobain wig for his birthday. What’s there to laugh? No seriously I will gift him the wig.”
“You are a baby too.”
“And you are the Amma!”

Chapter 12 - A social visit

The balcony floor felt like burning coal, except it shone white in the brilliant sunlight. Maan and Kamala cowered in the shade where the sea breeze fanned them from time to time. The neighbor’s one-storied house had a rooftop with a solitary TV antennae stretching towards the sky and some clothes hanging from the clothesline. The wind blew the clothes and made them flutter like invisible rubbery people dancing in synchronicity. After a while both Maan and Kamala hopped out of the burning balcony in the direction of the spiral staircase.

There was a bold knock on the door. Kamala went and opened the door. Outside in the sunlight was a man of average height and build. He sported a fashionable french-cut beard and wore round spectacles. Behind the glasses two intense eyes squinted at Kamala, trying to adjust to the darkness inside the house that sharply contrasted the harsh brightness outside. He was dressed in a starched white shirt and jeans. The edges of his mouth were smeared with red and he constantly chewed on betel nuts. Tufts of hair sprouted from the otherwise smooth surface of his head, like shoots of wild grass emerging at springtime after a long cold winter. The expression on his face gradually changed from that of irritation to that of quiet composure.
“Kamala, it’s me”, he said.
“What do you want, Manoj?”
He smiled, as if the answer was something everyone knew.

“Can I come in?” he said and gradually lifted her hand, which was guarding the door. He glanced closely at her as he passed her and walked inside with a confident stride. It was then that he noticed Maan sitting on the chair.
“Oh! So you have company today. I won’t waste your time then. I am here to tell you that I am on your side.”
He sat down on the chair and scratched his beard.
“Rather hot outside, don’t you think?” he said to Maan.
Maan smiled at him, picked up the newspaper and began reading it.
“Yes, as I was saying. I am, rather, we are on your side, Kamala. I have known you and your brother since childhood. Sunil and I went to school together, flew kites together. As soon as I heard of Sunil and the issue with the Mehtas, I felt like doing something about it. No really, I am on your side.”
Here he shook his head vigorously, and appealed to Maan with his eyes and expression, realizing that Kamala was blind to all his movements.
“What can I say about Sunil? He is no doubt brilliant. No really, he is quite good. But it is not easy these days, and people in Mumbai are ruthless. You start a business and the wealthy businessmen will offer the same products at half price. And boom you are wiped out”.

Here he looked at Maan and began to address him.
“Besides somebody like Sunil isn’t really made for business. He is an artist you know. I would have asked him to join my garage but that would be a waste of his talent. We wanted him to be an artist. But that is a struggle you know. I tell you Sunil had the eye for it and such beautiful hands”. He glanced at Kamala and her hands and then looked at Maan again.
“I mean he would paint so well. But you know how it is with artists. He has this temper about him. He is the exact opposite of Kamala, you know. She is the sweetest, but he is quite crazy sometimes. He isn’t exactly very social, you know what I mean. Business requires you to be level headed and composed at all times. I meet so many people everyday. Some of them are decent people like you, the rest are pigs, I say!” Here he chuckled a bit and reached for the bottle of water on the center table.
He took a gulp and said, “Rather hot outside. Like I was saying, Kamala don’t worry I am always here. Ask Sunil to come and meet me. I can help him with money and he can always work for me at the garage you know. We are your friends.”
He took another gulp and said, “Oh another thing. You know you can help out too Kamala. Hemant and his group need a female vocalist for their show on Thursday night. They are willing to pay a lot. I will personally put in word for you. I have heard you sing, you are so good. Don’t worry. I will personally take you to the venue. "

Kamala shook her head and smiled to suggest that she saw through his ruse.
He hurriedly added, "No hurry. Think about it. Your family could use the money. And remember I am on your side Kamala.”
He let the words linger and saw it settle as a frown on Kamala's face. Obviously she was thinking about it.

Finally he got up from his seat and smiled courteously at Maan.
He walked up to the door where Kamala was still standing. “Just call me if you need anything”, he said to Kamala and gave a good long glance at her before going out into the sun.

“Guess I should be going too. Thank you so much Kamala”, said Maan as he walked up to Kamala.
“I thought you would stay for lunch. Ba will be back soon.”
“We can try lunch someother time Kamala. I have to dine with some high level dignitaries today”, he said.
“Yeah right!” said Kamala and laughed.
Maan stood for a while looking at Kamala. Moments later he stepped outside. Suddenly Kamala asked, “When will you be coming to see us again?”
“Soon”, said Maan after reflecting a bit. He gave one last look at Kamala before walking out into the long winding narrow alley that he had come to dread after his experience the previous night.
On his way out Maan navigated around people and inanimate objects that perpetually blocked his way. It was no better than last night even though he could see things better in the bright sunlight. At one point he tripped and fell down.
“Careful! Here let me help you”, said Manoj who suddenly materialized out of thin air and gave him a helping hand.
“Thanks!” said Maan.
“No problems. That way is out”, said Manoj with a chuckle.
As he walked Maan felt his knees - they hurt. He thought about Manoj a little and then tried to tell himself that what had happened didn't really concern him at all. Then he became aware of something sharp in his pockets. It was from the previous evening – an object the little girl had given him. It turned out to be a small knife. The handle had an engraving. The blade snapped open like a serpent. Its edge was sharp and glistened in the sun.

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!”

Chapter 10 - The Ride

The taxi sped away like a bunny rabbit. The old man sat quietly and looked nervously at his lunch box. Maan touched his lunchbox but the old man quickly put it to his other side, out of Maan's reach. The taxi driver kept stealing glances at them through his rear view mirror. But he looked away as soon as Maan looked at his face through the rear view mirror, waved at him and smiled mischievously.
“Who are you?” said the old man suddenly.
“Prince Charles”, said Maan.
“Stop the taxi!” commanded the old man.
“What will you do when you get down?”
“Whatever! I am not going with you”, he said with exasperation in his voice.
“Ok sit for 5 minutes, then you can get down.”
“No”, he said and shook his head.
Maan took out a chewing gum from his pocket and offered it to the old man.
“What is it?” he asked.
“A sedative, to stop your grumbling.”
“What?” he looked perplexed.
Maan put the chewing gum in his mouth and began to laugh. The old man smiled.
“Where are you taking me, your majesty?” he asked Maan.
“Buckingham Palace of course.”
The old man sighed and looked out the window.
“What does your daughter do?” asked Maan.
“Why?” asked the old man.
“You look like an academic. Do you teach somewhere?” asked Maan.
“No, no. I am a lawyer! Oh and I think I remember where I stay”, he said as a smile spread across his wizened face.

The taxi turned into a bylane in Worli and Maan said, “This is where we get down.”
The old man looked around and said, “Yes, yes.”
This is where the wide road ended. The waves would break upon the stony walls and push at it with all its might. Sometimes it would breach these impenetrable boundaries, but this happened only in the monsoon season and the weatherman usually knew about it beforehand. To one side of where they stood they could see little children running after balloons and lovers planning their own dreamy worlds hung by cotton strings tied to these balloons. But to the other side was a place where all such balloons would burst. This was a world that never looked towards the sea.

Maan held the old man’s arm and led him into a dark, squalid lane. People rubbed their shoulders against Maan, for it was too narrow for two people to pass side by side. Some people stared at him others didn’t notice him.
“Prince Charles! It doesn’t feel familiar, does it?” laughed the old man.
“Lead the way old man, this is your kingdom.”
The old man nodded. They passed through smoke that came from earthen ovens and entered a world dark and hidden. People stood in their way and sometimes they wouldn’t move.
“Well, don’t look at them. Just push them away”, said the old man matter-of-factly. Yet, little children clung to his trousers, women held on to his shirt, kissed him and rubbed their hands on his face and men held his collar and shook him a bit. Then they bared their teeth and laughed at him. Maan didn’t look at their faces. He slapped his hands on whatever touched him and walked as one would in a tropical jungle.

A while later the old man stood at the door of an old house.
“Ba”, said a voice from inside the house, “Is that you?”
The door opened to utter darkness, until Maan made out a pair of shining eyes.
“Where were you Ba? I waited for you so long”, said the voice.
“Kamala, we have a guest”, said the old man. He went inside briskly and turned on a solitary bulb, the brightness of which stunned Maan for a while. Then he saw a girl inside taking the old man’s lunch box to what was perhaps a kitchen inside. She had thick, curly hair and was of dark complexion. When she returned with a glass of water, Maan could see her plain round face that contrasted her remarkable, shining eyes. She was dressed in rags, but what she wore didn’t seem out of place among the old walls and rusty furniture of her home.

“Prince Charles, this is my daughter, Kamala. Don’t be fooled by her sureness of movement. She is completely blind”, the old man said with a sense of pride as he sat on his rocking chair.
“Thank you”, said Maan as he accepted the glass of water.
Kamala looked at him and smiled graciously.
“Kamala, I lost my way, and even my mind. This man is the reason why I am back home and sitting before you.”
“Thank you”, said Kamala to Maan.
“Oh I was looking for someone else and found your father walking aimlessly with a lunchbox in his hand. I don’t know what drew me to him. He tried to run away from me, but I wouldn’t let him go so easily”, laughed Maan.
“Ba is much too old. But we depend on him. Sunil does his bit too.”
“Sunil is my son”, explained the old man.
Maan nodded and then looked around the house. It had small windows. The paint had all but peeled off. The sitting room wasn’t all that big. There were some old chairs and a cot placed against the wall. There was a small TV and even an old refrigerator. Maan felt very tired and drowsy.
“I must be going.”
“Please have some tea”, said Kamala.
Kamala looked on at him with a constant gaze that made Maan feel very self-conscious.
“I won’t be too long”, she said and went into the inside of the house.
It was twilight outside and smoke sneaked in through the window near the cot. Perhaps it came from the kitchen next doors.
The old man walked up to Maan and asked, “Are you alright?”
But Maan had nodded off to sleep.

Chapter 9 - Lost

Maan stood there by the gate, trying to discern figures in the twilight. The streetlights were still yawning, shaken up from sleep by those timely, efficient people that nobody has seen. As Maan looked around, the security guard came from behind him, trying to find out what he was looking for. Maan saw him and smiled. The guard chewed at the betel nuts in his mouth, cogitated a while and was about to speak, when Maan walked away from him. It was evening time, and it seemed like everybody had come outside to breathe in some sea breeze. Walking right in front of Maan was an old man with a lunchbox in his hand. Strangely, he reminded Maan of a balance as it seemed as though his shoulders had tipped over to one side with the weight of the lunchbox. People went past him, no one noticed him, nor did he notice anybody. A little later, tired of walking he stood by a lamppost, to hold it for a while and look at the dying sun. It is then that he suddenly noticed Maan.

He turned around and said, “What do you want?”
“Nothing”, said Maan.
“Hmmm”, he said, and began to walk faster, conscious that Maan was following him. He turned sharply at a corner, hoping he would lose Maan. But Maan followed him like a shadow. He stopped abruptly and said, “Really, what is it that you want?”
“Where are you going?” asked Maan.
“I am going home”, he said, and began to walk again. This time he tried to cross the street but was almost hit by a car. Maan quickly held him back. The car came to a screeching halt a few paces in front of them and the driver shouted, “Are you blind?” Maan looked at the car and wondered if he had seen it before or had heard the voice somewhere. The old man shook himself off Maan and looked at him, squinting his eyes.
“Do I know you?”
“You should be more careful”, said Maan.
The old man looked at him and smiled. Some of his teeth were missing and something about his smile was very childlike and simple.
“But where are you going?” asked Maan.
“I have lost my way”, he simply said.

They stood there for a while. In front of them sprung up an old mansion. A flight of stairs appeared from nowhere. And for a while it seemed as though nobody was around. Maan held the old man by his hand and made him sit on the stairs.
“When did you leave home?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been home for days”, he said blankly. “I remember leaving home one morning. I haven’t slept in a long time.”
“What is your name?” asked Maan.
“I don’t know”, and he looked into the infinite blankness in front of him.
“What is that?” Maan pointed at the tiffin box.
“My daughter packed me some lunch. It’s empty now.”
A little boy walked by with a teapot in his hand shouting “Chai”. Maan called him, took from him a cup of tea and gave it to the old man. He accepted it without a word.
“Don’t worry, we’ll find your home”, said Maan. The old man looked at him with tears in his eyes. Maan noticed something papery peeping out of the old man’s pocket. He put his hand in the old man’s pocket and found scraps of paper and some money. He studied them for a while. Then he looked up suddenly and said, “I think I know where you stay. " He stood up and gave the old man his hand and said, "Come on, let me help you up”.
Maan hailed a taxi. As they were about to get in he felt a tug on his trouser. It was a little girl from the streets of Mumbai. Her face was covered in dirt, but she had sparkling eyes. When Maan looked at her, she placed something in Maan’s hand and quickly ran away. Maan watched her run away and then looked at the object in his hand. He couldn’t quite understand what it was. It looked like a pen, but it wasn't one. The taxi driver said, “Where do you want to go?”
Maan helped the old man into the taxi, got in himself and unmindfully transferred the object from his hand to his pocket.

“Why have we stopped here Meenakshi?” said Vijay. “And what are you looking at? There is no one there on the staircase.”
“It looked like Maan. I am positive, it was him.”
“What would he be doing here sitting with an old man? Oh come on, we are getting late”
Meenakshi looked at him and at the impatience on his face. It had been a long day. Ever since that little encounter with Mrs. Krishnan in office, she had been running behind black and white people all over Mumbai doing interviews. She remembered with a tinge of pain, that it was in one of these interviews that she had met Maan. "Oh, my mind is so muddled. What's the use of thinking about all this", she said to herself. Now she had to go back to work and type out an exhaustive report. Then there would be a long trainride back home. Hopefully she would get some sleep at night.

Meenakshi walked back slowly to the car, her mind somewhere else.
“Madam, where are you lost?” asked Vijay.
She looked at Vijay and attempted to smile. Then she looked at the sea and lost herself in waves of thought. But who was that old man? I hope he isn’t hurt. Why is Maan with him? Hope Maan is all right. May be I should ask Abhijit.

Vijay lit a cigarette and smoke filled the inside of the car. Meenakshi looked on at the curls of smoke from the cigarette. "Was it really Maan?", she thought.