The Last Train Home

The neon lights flickered fitfully as Lisa walked down the now motionless escalator, one of the stragglers going home at midnight to cold dinners and indifferent beds. She and her companions, acquaintances by sight, were regulars on the last train at night, alighting in ones and twos at the stations on the North-East line. No crowds surged in to push them backwards, imperilling their exit; the bullet-like whoosh was the only sound they heard as the train chugged forward through the cavernous tunnels, being swallowed into the darkness and disgorged again, intact, by sterile, white-lit platforms.

Lisa stepped off the escalator and sat down on the nearest steel bench, sitting down with her back arching uncomfortably against the odd angular curve of the cold chair. She smoothed her brown uniform skirt over her knees and fished in her large, square handbag for one of her newly-bought paperbacks. These were about the only books she read now, fresh off the press but then gathering dust in supermarkets, spines cracked and pages thumbed by various uninterested fingers. She almost felt a sort of pity for these neglected books, lovingly sent into the world by writers who thought their fortune was made at last, but then trashed and denigrated by harsh criticism, ensuring the author was never heard of again. They were books with stereotypical covers, raised gold letters and extravagant blurbs; they didn’t make any demands on her intellect at that unearthly hour, when all she wanted to do was stumble into bed, too tired even to dream.

You read far too much, said her friends at work, when she had first burst upon them, bespectacled and glowing with the pride of her newly obtained college degree. The timing wasn’t too good for her, though- she wasn’t wanted where she wished to go, so off she went disconsolately to assist at one of the numerous fashionable shops dotting the island. There may not have been enough jobs, but there still was plenty of money. The rich continued to buy diamond-encrusted watches for their lovers, and she waited on them. She would meet some interesting people this way, she thought, and write about them. She would be discovered. All she needed was patience.

So when her slightly bemused, vaguely respectful colleagues accused her of reading too much, she had initially waved an autocratic hand at them. Reading feeds the imagination, she had said, thinking of the worlds she fled into when the demons of reality bore down heavily upon her. The idealism she worshipped was the stuff of legend, the halo she imbued herself with existed only in the world she had imagined into existence, piece by piece.

Sadly though, Lisa missed the bus when adulthood beckoned. She forgot to grow up, and realized too late that the companions of her childhood had gone ahead, leaving her behind with her own fairy dust, a grown-up Disney princess swathed in pink gauze and wearing ribbons in her hair.

The transition had been difficult, but almost complete. Realising that she was capable of love surprised her pleasantly; knowing that she could have her heart broken made life seem worthless for a while. She thought a lot, and she thought deeply. The names she assumed changed- she was no longer a Bathsheba or an Irawati, but plain Lisa. Two syllables, rolling easily off the tongue, with no quirks of pronunciation. She was getting herself a new identity, becoming a new individual. She didn’t want a sparkly tiara on her greying hair. The veneer of refinement faded as she settled into her role of working girl, imagining, in moments of romantic weakness, that she was living the life of Lily Bart without the suitors. Those who had started the journey with her had struck out on their own, going their own separate ways, meeting occasionally to celebrate spouses and jobs; she had- by some stroke of misfortune?- kept her hermetic life intact. The real and the presumed still confused her, but she was getting better at sieving the ideas presented to her, learning that the inner child that had to be guarded wasn’t physical, but purely platonic.

The last train whooshed into the station and Lisa looked up with a start. In three quarters of an hour, she would be walking home past the restaurant with its little cluster of smoking men, their cigarettes creating single points of light amidst the silhouettes of the ornamental plants that lined its front. Their beer cans would be crushed and discarded on the pavement in due course, and she would pick her way through them distastefully, muttering at their capacity for idleness, then pull up short as she remembered her own situation. Maybe they were stragglers, and perhaps she belonged with them, too. She’d know in a few years.

Aunt Leena's Story

Leena shuffled out on to the porch in her oversized slippers, her gnarled, knobbly hands tightly clutching a china cup, the last of her few heirlooms. It was a clear morning, and the snow-capped peak shone proud and pristine in the distance, looking on at the play of Nature as the clouds did a deferential dance around their mighty master.

Settling her creaking bones into a sagging armchair, Leena gazed at her unkempt garden. The house on one corner of the square patch of land had once looked like an unsightly wart on a smooth young face; but it had gradually become part of the landscape, been accepted as if it had grown out of the earth during one of Creation's more eccentric moments. Forty-five years earlier, if anyone had predicted that she'd grow into an old maid and live in solitude with two cats for company in a Himalayan nook, she would have laughed at the prophet for his foolishness, or slapped him for his audacity. Leena had once been the prettiest, most vivacious and sought-after young woman in the vicinity. Suitors came and went like the seasons, and because Leena was born to be a buttefly, she never realised what happened until it was too late and she was past her prime. The girlish dreams of snowy veils and bouquets of red roses were discarded into a heap of unfulfilled dreams, to be cobwebbed and desecrated as time pleased.

"Firenze! Sasha! Oh, these pesky cats." Leena set down two bowls of milk for her pets and watched the cats clean themselves in the mellow sunshine.

Steady thumps and thwacks came floating up from the road outside the gate. "The sun has hardly risen, and the boys are at it again. Cricket, indeed!" She shut her eyes and felt the warmth of the sunshine on her face. Wisps of grey hair fell unheeded on her wrinkled forehead as she slipped into a half-doze, dreaming of her days of glory.

A tinkle of glass shattered Leena's reverie. She turned, saw the chipped windowpane and sighed.

"If only I'd known. What a typical spinster's life I live! Mismatched clothes, large slippers, tinned food, two cats and unruly neighbourhood boys. I really should have accepted Sancho Panza when he asked me. But how could I have lived with a man who was supposed to have ridden a donkey? What ridiculous names some people have!"

"Aunty, ball!"

"Come and get it," replied Leena in a weary voice. This was an everyday scene, in books, on television and in her 'typical spinster's life', and she had resigned herself to playing the patient, kind old woman who didn't bite or bark at the boys who came trampling on her plants. Not that there was much to trample upon, really. She had never bothered to talk to these boys, and they never said a word either, as they tore across her garden, heads bowed.

"What a dull, depressing, wasted life mine is!"

A crisp wind blew through the valley. The trees stirred briefly to life and their leaves rustled to one another. A laugh sounded down the road. A young woman was running down the street, full of life and energy, pursued by her paramour on a bicycle- their healthy voices ringing with the carefree, undefined happiness of youth. They could well have been ghosts from the past- and Leena was young once again, running down the forested slopes of the hills, picnicking with friends and singing with the larks, sunbeams catching her shiny curls and the wind flirting with them.

"And what makes you think you don't have friends any longer?" said a voice, deep inside her bosom.

A tall, scrawny boy came scrambling up the porch steps, picked up the ball, and started to run down.

"A minute, young man," called Leena, in her best imitation of a headmistress's voice.

The boy turned hesitantly, eager to join his friends, his fingers impatiently toying with the ball.

"Who do you think will replace that broken pane?"

"Um..er..."

"Do you read?"

"A little."

"Well, if you read enough, you'd perhaps know that good boys always pool their money together to replace the broken window-panes of lonely old ladies," she said firmly.

"Yes'm."

"So what are you going to do now? And no use telling me you're not a good boy, because I can see that you are one."

A pause. The boy chewed on this thumbnail with concentration, and seemed to make up his mind about something. He looked at her.

"Aunty, I've also read that lonely old ladies bake the best chocolate cakes," said the boy softly, his large brown eyes taking in the kindly lines of her seemingly stern face. Kindred spirits know one another when they first meet- and the humorous twinkle in Leena's eyes showed itself despite her best efforts to conceal it. They smiled as their eyes met, and soon, Leena was laughing so hard her sides were almost bursting.

"You are a clever young man, aren't you? Yes, I do bake chocolate cakes, and biscuits as well. Care for tea sometime?"

The boy grinned and ran to tell his friends his piece of good news. New friendships laid their foundations. Leena, to the end of her days, had a house brimming with flowers, love and young hopes. The old pain throbbed deep down on some dark days, but was always smoothened over with warmth and chocolate cake.

"What a charming, fulfilling, happy life yours is, Aunt Leena!" called the girls, as they bicycled by. And the ghosts of the past were set to rest.

The Day That Wouldn't Come

With just two days to go for the staging of the play, the excitement in the air was palpable. The children could hardly eat or sleep without dreaming of their costumes and their dialogues. The mellow music of the violin floated forever in their ears, the march Mrs. Braganza played on her piano was in their heads and made their feet dance in rhythm to it. Oh, what fun! It was such a pity Christmas came just once a year.

Mrs. Braganza had indeed had a brilliant idea, replacing the regular Nativity play that the children were quite bored with, with a little fairy story, a mix gleaned from Rapunzel, Cinderella and Snow White, that she herself had scripted. English names became Spanish and Portuguese; blond Margarets and Edwards became brunette Juanitas and Pedros. The village was small, the children grew up and grew bored rapidly. The stagnant little pool of people that still remained had witnessed the Nativity play numerous times over the years with the same actors. The Magi had outgrown their robes and the crowns had lost their sheen, though the timeless story still throbbed and thrived in the collective soul of the tiny, aged Goan village. Some things never could change.

“Ma, I’m going down to the theatre,” Leena called out to her mother, shutting the rickety wooden door of the one-roomed house behind her, bunches of her clean, patched, oversized skirt scrunched up in her fist to keep the hem from the slush of the previous night’s rain. The clouds had dived back into the sea now, grey mantle and all, disappearing in the sparkling, foamy blue-and-white swirls. The sky was just as blue, washed clean and bright, flecked with puffy white clouds.

“As white as Miss Naomi’s frock,” thought Leena, picking her way through the jagged rocks of the cliff that her house perched on, with a confidence born of the recklessness of girlhood. There was an additional spring in her step because she was going to the ‘theatre’ and would get to look at the lovely dresses and hold the pretty little tiara that Naomi would wear as Princess Juanita. It didn’t matter that she had only been picked to play the lady’s maid, and that because all the other little girls had refused to play the demeaning part. Nobody would be Juanita’s maid; how could they? Proud mothers taught their darling daughters to say no. Jealousy stained the pure innocence of childhood, leading to unforeseen consequences. Leena, for the first time in her life, was allowed to participate in the children’s activities. That she went to school with them was of no consequence, she sat in her own corner and ate her own coarse food. Who would mingle with the daughter of a domestic help?

Leena, in typical eleven-year-old innocence, knew nothing of the trappings of wealth and status. She was just overjoyed at the idea of being allowed to play with the others, and didn’t know that her mother’s heart bled at this base act of discrimination and injustice. The other children were the trained slaves of bourgeois discipline, taught to do what their parents told them to and not to commit the grave crime of thinking on their own. Dutifully, they learnt their lessons and repeated them, not daring or willing to go beyond the set boundaries. It was just too much trouble.

Skipping over stones, sending pebbles rolling under her callused, thin-slippered feet, Leena reached the ‘theatre’- a pompous word for a room with a makeshift stage behind the lone church of the village, freshly whitewashed for Christmas, smelling of newness, cookies and cakes. She was very early, as usual. She never could keep her excitement at bay. She peeped into the room warily, and finding no one there, hopped in with gay abandon, her hair swinging on her back in two oiled braids entwined with faded red ribbon. It was quite a marvel how, at the end of the day, Leena’s mother managed to extricate cloth from hair.

The costumes were stacked in a pile on an old sofa in the corner. Naomi’s white gown lay on top, a plain dress made over with all the frills and lace that could be procured at the local bangle shop, and for that very reason of abundance, attractive to a deprived child’s greedy eye. Leena was to have a costume, of course; the wise mothers had decided on a cast-off frock of one of the princess’s friends, for she was, after all, just a lady’s maid, impoverished and plain. Leena had looked on with justifiable envy as the frocks were brought in the previous day, and the girls rehearsed with them on for the first time. How pretty they looked, a sun-browned princess with curly black hair and her sun-browned friends, glistening eyes and rosy mouths over pink and white and yellow frills. And a little maid in a pale green dress, watching quietly from the sidelines, speaking when spoken to, acting obediently, a trained slave of the trained slaves of the bourgeois.

“How I wish I could have a dress like Miss Naomi’s,” said Leena to her mother that night, eyes shining in excitement. Her mother smiled. “You will, some day.” Some day, when she had enough money to afford a new dress; or some day, when Leena found an unemployed man with coarse lips to kiss her hair when he was impassioned and beat her when he was drunk (for that was what often fell to their lot and she couldn‘t imagine anything better than that happening), she could perhaps have a decent dress for her wedding. ‘Some day’ was the answer to most of Leena’s answerable questions and requests- when an already ragged cloth doll torn apart by a pariah dog could be replaced, when a scraped knee exposing a hideous-looking clot of blood would see new skin grow over and scar it closed, when they could visit the fancy restaurant where the lights dazzled and the Christmas tree came into life with trimmings and baubles in December. When that day would come, neither mother nor daughter knew; one viewed the possibility of its arrival with too little optimism, the other with too much. The line between childhood and adulthood.

Leena looked longingly at the white frock. What wouldn’t she give (if she had anything) to be able to wear it once, just once. She stroked the smooth satin bodice with her work-hardened hands, taking care to wipe them against her own blouse first. What a pretty dress it was! Such frills! Longing metamorphosed into intense desire, whittling away rapidly the fear that encased the tiny heart now swollen with greed. A new daring replaced her timidity, and before she knew it, she was pulling the frock on over her head, disappearing in its puffy layers, a model of incongruity in the still, sunbeam-broken air of the empty room. A faint glimmer among swathes of red velvet revealed the tiara, and with less hesitation than before, Leena picked it up and set it on her head.

Trembling with a strange mixture of thrill and trepidation, Leena climbed onto the stage. At this moment, she wasn’t Leena. She was Juanita. She was young, but the raw passion that sows its seeds in human hearts and leaves them dormant, to ripen at their own time, took root now; she was an actress, no, she was Juanita, the fictional princess, now real. She awaited Pedro. She was eleven, she scarcely knew what the love she was enacting was, yet she felt it. She pleaded, she cried, she smiled, she enacted the role perfectly. Juanita. The Princess. She was a reality.

Swirling around at the end of her little play, the skirt revolving in innumerable swirls around her thin legs, she curtsied prettily, facing an invisible audience, a satisfied smile dimpling her face. Her smiling eyes bashfully looked up from the rough wooden floor to the vacant chairs, exuding confidence at the idea of facing the grim, unseeing walls- and oh, horror of horrors, the chairs weren’t unoccupied any longer. Feet had come pattering in inaudibly, bodies had floated in noiselessly, and faces stared back at her now, curiosity and wonder stamped on them.

The chilly warmth of a tense coastal winter afternoon penetrated the silent air. The world came to a standstill, as if awaiting one moment of truth that would change things forever. And then- a sharp wave of applause broke through. One pair, then two, then several pairs of hands came together in loud applause that echoed off the whitewashed walls. Leena looked around in fright and bewilderment, and then sudden joy. Surprise, surprise! They were clapping for her. They were applauding her performance. She was the star they were cheering. Oh, how good it felt!

What took time to filter into Leena’s ears and make itself audible was the jeering. The scornful laughter that accompanied the applause. The sarcasm in the applause. The taunts and the jibes, the comments at the audacity of a maid’s daughter to think she could ever be a princess. Naomi’s eyes were red with wrath when they met Leena’s, and the poor little girl slid off the stage in fright. Hardly conscious of what she was doing, she squeezed into an alcove and dragged the frock over her head in a hurry, the frills swirling absurdly, shreds of lace entangling themselves in her hair and making her look like an absurd scared fairy. The once-beloved dress was discarded with shame, and Leena ran past the angry crowd of well-off, angry mothers and children, her deflated heart swelling again, this time with the hurt seeping in.

Leena ran like the wind. Her slippers tore, her skirt was splattered all over with mud, but she didn’t care. Sobs rose in her chest and her breath came out raspingly, painfully, tearing through her mouth in great gasps. Her childhood was swallowed up in those few unbearably real moments of discernment. Her position became startlingly clear to her, enlightenment washed in like a huge, engulfing wave.

She let herself into the house. Her mother wasn’t home, not that it would make a difference. Because, this time, the question wasn’t answerable. It didn’t have to be answered. It didn‘t have to be asked. For there wouldn’t be a day when she really could be a princess. “Some day?” a tiny voice whispered hopefully. This time, the question wasn’t answered. Along with all the other answerable questions, it was buried irretrievably in the past, never to be sought out again. Some things never would change.

Surrealism

The wind chimes clinked as a tall, brown-haired young man walked in, backpack slung carelessly across his left shoulder. The chimes tinkled and jangled every time the door was opened and shut. The shop was warm, charming and tastefully arranged. And why not, when old Mrs. Lim, a rich Chinese lady who had taken an Indian husband against much opposition, had so much money to spend on delightful things, on things other than ‘necessities’. ‘It wouldn’t be too bad to be rich, would it now,’ Aarti thought, when her tendencies towards a life of simplicity and renunciation took a more worldly turn, as often happened the moment she stepped into this wonderful, curious shop to take her turn at the cash counter. Surrealism. The name suited the shop beautifully. In fact, it seemed quite like sacrilege to call it a shop at all. It had spirit, it embodied many unidentifiable, inseparable emotions and ideas, it warmed and comforted broken hearts; it was a shop only in the sense that it drew metal and paper out of unwary, bulging pockets.

Tucked away in a remote corner of the city, Surrealism never did draw enough attention. It wasn’t meant to be a commercial venture, it was just a means for Mrs. Lim to flaunt her Oriental riches, to attempt intelligent conversations in broken German, French and Italian, and fluent Chinese, with the tourists who trickled in, and to provide a decent income to the three young women who worked for her. Aarti was one of them.

Aarti worked part-time at Surrealism. She came in as soon as her classes ended for the day, a slim, weary-eyed twenty-year-old making her way through the narrow streets from college to this enchanting land of dreams and antiquity. The lecherous glances of some men (she wasn’t pretty; but what girl has to be, to draw lewd glances from those corrupt eyes), the bothersome roommates whose ideas were always poles apart from hers, the sorrows of the heart, big and small, all packed themselves into one huge case which stowed itself away into some distant recess of her mind the moment she entered the shop, to be retrieved only when she came out of her stupor. Each new day, every time she came in, she felt like a first-timer here. No matter how familiar the red and gold decor, the positioning of the furniture, the stacks of beads and rosaries and the statues of the Buddha, there was always something new to be discovered, something wondrous and magical. She couldn’t quite put her finger on this one thing, and had several times decided to stop trying, only to unbend her resolution and go back to attempting to discover just what it was about Surrealism that mystified her so.

The week-long Christmas vacation had finally come around, and Aarti was glad of the chance to put in longer hours at the shop to cover for Natalie (who would on no account be denied her Christmas break, come rain or shine, poverty, even absolute penury). The extra money was definitely welcome, but what attracted her most was the opportunity to revel in the surroundings that suited her best, more than home (or the semblance of it in the two-room flat she shared with three other girls), and the company of Mrs. Lim.

“Three days gone, Aarti,” said Mrs. Lim in her papery, not unkind voice, as Wednesday dawned bright and clear, two days before Christmas. “Three days of Christmas week, and I have hardly had any customers.”

“You don’t mind that much, do you, Mrs. Lim?” asked Aarti, pulling off her black cardigan and stowing it away neatly in a desk under the counter. “Except for the conversation, that is.” She put some coffee on, and turned to Mrs. Lim, looking clean and matronly, wrapped in a bright, colourful shawl, booty from the North East of India, her grey hair brushed neatly back into a bun.

“Yes, I miss the conversation. I definitely do. The money doesn’t really matter, it comes and goes, though I must confess things are getting a little difficult now.” She ran her age-withered fingers affectionately over a stack of leather-bound Chinese volumes, flicked some invisible dust off the glass surface of the table by which she sat, ensconced comfortably in a wicker chair. “Surrealism has been my only solace from the madness of the world. This place works wonders on me, Aarti. Though I know it inside out, every time I come in, I feel like there is some niche waiting to be discovered, some unknown spirit beckoning to me to come and make myself familiar to it. I can hardly understand the feeling.”

Aarti was quiet. So she wasn’t the only one. That made her feel a little strange, an absurd pain piercing through her bosom. She had always liked to believe she was different from the rest of the crowd, that there was something about her that gave her an aura of distance and mystery and a deep understanding, unfathomable to others, of inexplicable phenomena. She almost felt angry with Mrs. Lim for feeling the same way as she did. She silently poured out the coffee into two intricately designed cups, handed one of them to Mrs. Lim and carried the other back to the counter. She settled down with a book on Sufism, to all appearance keeping boredom at bay while she awaited the first customer for the day, though her attention was as far away from this brand of mysticism as possible, thoughts running riot at the back of her mind.

The noise. It was in her head again. The same noise that rang out like heavy cymbals, unceasing waves and the roar and insanity of traffic as she struggled to fall asleep every night, coming to a sudden stop the moment she abandoned the effort, the trance-inducing silence gently taking over and guiding her into a beguiling, satisfying slumber. Another of the innumerable mysteries it was, this incongruous noise, followed by an almost equally deafening silence which brought about tranquility and peace, as pure as the snow-fed, clear water of the brooks flowing on the upper reaches of unpolluted virgin mountains.

The first customers came and went. A tiresome middle-aged Indian couple, who wanted to be shown everything, wanted to touch and feel everything, looked uncomprehendingly at the masterly strokes of the Chinese alphabet in the aforementioned leather volumes, and then decided to buy nothing. “Just not good enough,” Aarti heard the husband whisper surreptitiously to his wife as they walked out, the woman’s hands reluctantly letting go of a jade necklace she had been admiring as he strode out, calling to her to come impatiently.

“Not enough taste,” Aarti felt like calling back, but pressed her lips into a thin line and continued with her book. She noticed that Mrs. Lim hadn’t even looked up all the while the couple were in the shop, not bothering to strike up a conversation with them as she did with more interesting, well-read, discerning customers. Mrs. Lim knew. She knew who the genuine lovers of art and mysticism were, who had it in them to appreciate quality. She had, of course, watched out of the corner of her eye as the husband commented and the wife whined, storing up in her mind for later criticism these specimens of inappropriate behaviour and ill-breeding.

The next customers were worse than this silly couple, a group of giggling girls who laughed endlessly at all that was morbid and dreary, tried to shoplift but gave up the attempt under Mrs. Lim’s piercing glance, finally walking out as the air started to get a little too heavy for uninterested minds.

And now, as Aarti settled back on her perch a third time, walked in the next threat to her peace and quiet, or to aggravate the noise in her head, the young man with brown hair. Aarti glanced up, put down her book, adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose, pushed back the invisible loose strand of hair behind her ear. Oblivious as she believed herself to be to the charms of young men, of foreign tourists who breezed in and breezed out, absorbed only in the curious things they came to collect, she couldn’t quite resist these little feminine indiscretions. She fell prey, often unknowingly, to the guiles that had been ingrained in her soul as an inheritance of the ages- hoping to be noticed, while pretending not to seek attention, though doing everything she possibly could to that very end.

Aarti slid off the stool, feeling unaccustomedly self-conscious, feeling the keen green eyes of the stranger bore into hers as he asked her a question in broken, exquisitely accented English. For the first time in her life, she simpered and stumbled as she answered a straightforward question, her usual confidence and poise taking an unnatural beating. Seeing that he had managed to elicit an answer where he saw none forthcoming, the foreigner embarked on another, more difficult question, hoping and praying to be lucky this time as well. Aarti hoped and prayed for confidence as well, wondering at her stupidity, angry with this stranger for having shown her in such bad light. Her anger gave her courage; she was soon drawn into a philosophic discussion on Chinese burial rituals with him, and they were both as sombre and as argumentative as they could get. Mrs. Lim, mistress of wisdom when it came to her beloved China, wisely refrained from pitching in when she saw the discussion go horribly off track, the two novices wading into unknown waters and floundering for support.

The discussion came to an abrupt halt. The business of buying and selling had been completely forgotten; Surrealism was ostentatiously a shop, but something else in heart and soul, a place that fostered conversation and a communion of kindred spirits. Then, the young man whose name was Heinz, said hesitantly, “There is something about this place, you know. I have been coming here since I was a boy, on trips with my parents, and now on my own for the first time; I begin to think I know it well, but then every time I come, I feel like it is a new journey. I have never known this feeling elsewhere. Can you tell me why?”

And he bent his head and looked keenly at the ground, as if expecting to find the keys to this great mystery in the smooth stone floor, to come seeping out and engulf him and protect him from the intense embarrassment he was experiencing, having finally asked a question that had bothered him for as long as he could remember.

Aarti stood rooted to the spot. All these weeks that she had worked here, she had heard this weird idea being voiced only twice. And in just one day. By two people, one of whom she loved and respected, the other…she suddenly realized that the noise in her head had abated, a clear consciousness was taking over.

“I know what you mean, Heinz. I feel the same way, and so does Mrs. Lim.” She spoke breathlessly, for this was the only question of Heinz’s that she didn’t have an answer to, and she didn’t want to admit it. She didn’t want him to think her stupid, or to think himself stupid, as he was evidently doing. She wanted to comfort him and tell him that it was okay to ask strange questions, rhetorical questions, questions that didn’t come with packaged answers.

“It’s okay if some mysteries lie unsolved, Heinz.”

“Is it?” A touch of scepticism came into his voice, and he looked askance at her.

“Yes, it is,” replied Aarti, the conviction in her voice wavering a little, as if mirroring his own doubts, but she continued forcefully, building up on the artifice. “All of us have these questions in our minds, and it’s okay to talk about them, because others have the same doubts as well. It is only natural that we should, human that we are.”

“So, you’ve been feeling the same way?”

“Ever since I’ve been working here.” The familiarity should help drive away the awkwardness, she thought, make him feel more comfortable and at home.

“And Mrs. Lim, too?”

“Yes. In fact, she told me so just this morning.”

“Okay. Then I guess there is nothing unique or different about it. Sorry I took so much of your time.” A look of mingled incredulity and disappointment swept into his eyes, he clutched at the strap of his backpack, turned and shuffled out of the doorway. He had worked his way to the Big Question carefully, prepared a great deal for it, spent agonising hours wondering if he would find anybody here capable enough to give him a sensible solution to his problem. Never had he dreamt it was such a commonplace thing. Not a word of thanks, no goodbye, just a wave of disappointment left in his wake.

The wind chimes tinkled as the door banged shut, disturbing the reverie that wrapped the store and its contents in a perennial dream, temporarily awakening the dormant spirits that awaited discovery. Bringing reality barging in like a marauder come to rip the romantics of their right to imagination and dreams. And with such success!

The Long Afternoon

The house felt strangely empty as Priya tiptoed through the large hall into the verandah. The usual patter of busy feet, the loud voices of the adults raised in mirth, or indignation, or teasing superiority, did not grate in her ears any longer. She didn’t miss them. She couldn’t hear her cousins and their friends; they were probably outside, playing in the dust, doing exactly what they had been forbidden to do. The only thing she missed was the kindly, reassuring presence of her grandmother.

Her grandmother was the only person who always took her part in those never-ending quarrels with her older cousins and against all the grown-ups who constantly seemed to be laughing at her weird ways. She had taken seriously ill in the night, and been taken to hospital in the city. Her parents, her aunts and her uncles had gone along, taking with them their little children. Thankfully. She wouldn’t have wanted to baby-sit a couple of sobbing, incoherent, messy toddlers. Of course, one of her older cousins would have been asked to do so, not she, but then the bullies that they were, they always palmed off any responsibility they were entrusted with onto Priya. In her little, limited world, she was the butt of all ridicule. People thought she was crazy because she had imaginary friends, and talked to them whenever she was alone. Even in a house as big as this, with all the people living in it, privacy was a precious commodity, much sought after but extremely difficult to get. Priya resented it whenever her cousins spied on her and told the adults about all her role-play and soliloquy. They would shake their heads at her, tell her she would be put in an asylum before she was fifteen, and then go about their own business. Her mother and her aunts would dress up early and be ready to regale all their friends who dropped in for a chat at all hours of the day; her father and her uncles were perpetually frowning over a little money lost in some transaction. The house held no joy for her; her ten years had been spent in solitude mixed with wistfulness.

The only silver lining in this cloud of childish gloom was Priya’s grandmother; a cheerful, considerate lady who understood the needs of the most insignificant creature on the earth. It was in her company that Priya found solace. But the guardian angel of the house, and indeed, the locality, that the popular lady was, Priya didn’t have as much time with her alone as she would have liked.

Priya stood in the doorway, watching the dust raised from the dry ground by the slippered feet of the children- her cousins and their friends. The dust was everywhere- it floated on the sunbeams, lay thick on the limp leaves drooping from the trees, coated every single wall and pillar. How she wished one cool shower would wash everything away! That would bring her some comfort, now, because nothing else seemed to. Her elder brother and his friends never let her play with them. "You’re too young for our games! We need strong people, not scrawny kids like you." In the beginning, Priya pleaded with them, even ran little errands so she would be allowed into their circle, but she gradually realised how futile her servility was, and assumed an almost hostile attitude towards all these pretentious ‘grown-ups’ who populated her world.

"Go play with the kids! They’re your age," Anant, her brother, would say.

"They’re not! They’re much younger. And they are playing with little utensils. I don’t want to play those silly games. I want to play with you."

"No, you cannot. We play rough games, and you’ll end up going to Ma, crying because you’ve hurt yourself."

"I won’t! I never cry." Even as she said this, tears would start up in Priya’s eyes, and Anant would turn away, a cruel smile curving across his hateful, pasty face, as it seemed to his sister.

Sometimes, one of the girls, in an unexpected fit of kindness, would intercede on Priya’s behalf, but the proposal would be promptly nipped in the bud. Priya knew then that she was unwanted, and through some bitter lessons, came to accept the reality without protest. Her pride wouldn’t let her play with the ‘babies’, as she called them, and she would retreat into her shell, seeking solace in her imaginary world.

Priya watched the group this afternoon, her heart anxious for her grandmother, seeking some kind of encouragement. The other children were absorbed in play; the games, with their propensity for keeping childish anxiety at bay, had successfully rid their minds of any worrying thoughts. Priya did not know the nature of her grandmother’s illness, or its magnitude, but she felt almost sure that she would never see her only friend again. Childhood often magnifies fears, especially when they are not fully understood. So it was with Priya. She wished she could do something to forget the pain for a while.

As Priya watched, Anant came towards her, accompanied by Nita. Had she done something wrong? She’d just been watching. She cowered into a corner as Anant pushed the grill open and stepped into the verandah.

"Do you want to play with us?" he asked, without any preamble.

Priya gaped in astonished silence.

"Do you, or do you not? We don’t have all day."

"Yes."

"Come along then."

Nita, who had followed him in, spoke up. "Now, Priya, you must understand that we play tough games, and if you want to play with us, we’ll have to do something different. We can’t play our regular games. So you choose. What would you like to play?"

"I…I have dolls."

Anant snorted impatiently, but Nita nudged him. She turned to Priya patiently. "Look, the boys can’t play with dolls, you understand that, right? Think of something else. But be quick, because I think it’ll start raining sooner or later, and then you can’t play."

"Why are you asking me to play today?"

"Because you’re alone."

Priya thought hard for a while, and then said, "I have a top that my grandmother gave me. She gave it only to me, to nobody else, because she played with it when she was a little girl, and she knew I’d take good care of it."

"She gave it to you because you threw a tantrum," Anant cut in. "Priya thinks it’s a precious family heirloom," he smirked.

Nita glared at him fiercely, but softened as she turned to Priya.

"Bring it, Priya. We’ll wait for you outside."

Priya rushed into the house and opened the desk where she stored her little treasures. Her little breast was aflutter with excitement and anxiety- it all seemed so strange! They were actually asking her to play with them. But something didn’t feel quite right. She did her best to ignore that feeling, pushing it to the remotest recesses of her mind, and clutching the sturdy top to her chest, ran into the afternoon sunshine, feeling wanted for the first time in days.

Anant grabbed the top from her and disappeared into a group of boys.

"Anant!"

Nita appeared beside Priya and put an arm around her. "Don’t worry, he is just showing it to the others. You know it’s really old. He wants to show it off. He’ll give it back to you after a while. Then you can play with it."

"But you said we’d play together."

"Look, Anant will give you the top back after we are done playing with it. Don’t complain. Nobody forced you to bring it out." Then, followed by the other girls, Nita joined the raucous group.

Grey clouds began to gather overhead. They massed together, coming together in one angry bunch over a group of children, watched from the fringes by one lonely, bereft girl. She tried to push her way in, but was elbowed away. Anant wasn’t even bothered about what was happening to her. Bruised and hurting in more ways than one, Priya retreated to the shade of a tree. She would get her top back. It was the only thing of grandmother’s that she had. Then an agonising thought struck. Did it really matter, now that she might never even get her grandmother back? Tears pricked Priya’s eyes. She watched through her tears as the clouds opened up simultaneously. The rain wasn’t as comforting as she had thought it would be, a little while ago. It fell in big, heavy drops, and they stung.

As the children ran around the spinning top, it suddenly toppled from the slippery surface into a culvert nearby. The heavy rain that had fallen for ten minutes had turned the culvert into a little river, and as Priya and the others watched, it was carried away in the eddies of the brown water, amongst other pieces of rubble and dirt.

It didn’t seem to matter anymore. Priya went back into the house, impassive. She wanted her grandmother.
The other children went in another direction, in search of fresh game.

The Lilac Glove

The village maidaan was chock-a-block with people. Vendors shouted until they went hoarse, children clamoured, parents got angry and animals watched the mad mob of humanity with placid unconcern. The sweet shops did brisk business as did the man spinning the creaking handle of the uncomplicated, rustic rides. A single, bony brown horse trotted up and down a narrow path carrying sun-browned children on its back. Girls ran to the bangle shops hand in hand, ribbons fluttering like streamers from their well-oiled, tightly plaited black hair. Boys with a thin trace of hair on their upper lip, flattering themselves on their imminent manhood, strutted around with their broad-chested fathers beside the cattle sheds, pretending to understand the nuances of trade. A few romances were begun; some hearts broken. In the midst of this colourful rural confusion sauntered a young woman with a camera, trying to capture the essence of a fair in an ordinary Indian village.

After a somewhat sceptical lunch at a tiny shop in the dusty streets of the nearby town, for she trusted the food stalls at the fair even less, Meeta set off homeward. Once outside the town, she heaved a sigh of relief. The green fields soaked in the afternoon sunshine were a refreshing change from the narrow alleyways and close, crumbling buildings of the nondescript town. As she walked towards the hillside cottage where she was staying while she finished her assignment in the Himalayan town, the sky darkened and a light rain began to fall. The last few hundred metres home were a dash in the chilling rain, but soon Meeta found herself in the warm comforts of neat little Hazel Cottage.

Dry and comfortable, Meeta sat down by a window to enjoy the hilly vista. Green mountains rolled away in the distance, and a slight mist was beginning to settle on them as night crept in. Meeta had enjoyed every sunrise and sunset here, and was quite disappointed that the rain wouldn’t let her watch the exquisite purple and orange tints of the sky as the sun dipped from view into the distant mountains. She slipped into a reverie, imagining a clear blue lake in the valley that the cottage overlooked, and a lone bagpiper appearing on the nearest hill, serenading her with his music and wanting to take her away to his Highland home.

‘There is no place quite as beautiful as this,’ thought Meeta. ‘I wonder why nobody wanted to rent it.’ She had asked the agent who had rented out the cottage to her why it had lain empty so long, but he hadn’t been able to give her a clear answer. Being neither suspicious nor an heiress, she had snapped up the deal, for it suited her budget extremely well, and was exactly what satisfied her romantic soul. ‘I shall talk to the gardener tomorrow and see if he can tell me something useful.’

The next morning, after her customary salute to the sun, Meeta awaited the gardener’s arrival while she busied herself with an article for her magazine. At half-past eight, the small, wizened man arrived, his face contorted with the morning chill, a torn woollen cap thrown over his grey head. Meeta waited while he began digging and uprooting, and went up to him.

"Nice morning, isn’t it?"

The gardener looked up sullenly. "Nice enough for those who don’t have to work."

Meeta refrained from contradicting that assumption, because she understood that in the eyes of this hard-working son of the soil, any labour that was not physically strenuous was no work at all.

"Umm…I’d like to ask you something," ventured Meeta hesitantly.

The gardener merely grunted in response.

Slightly put off by his sullen taciturnity, yet aware that it wasn’t a sign of hostility, Meeta continued. "Would you be so kind as to tell me why this lovely little cottage has lain uninhabited for so long?"

"Because it is haunted."

Meeta did not know how to react to this terse statement. It was uttered with a conviction that surprised her because of the absurdity of what it meant.

"Haunted? What do you mean?" Meeta asked in an incredulous tone.

The gardener, who had been going on with his work during the conversation, now stopped digging and turned to Meeta. "Do you think the British left India?"

Meeta could not quite understand where the conversation was going. However, eager to ferret out as much information as she could from the old gardener, she merely nodded.

"Not all of them did." He gave her a glance that said he wouldn’t welcome any more inquisitive questions from her, and returned to his work.

Bemused, Meeta went back into the house. She felt a sudden chill as she stood in the centre of the small living room, and a sudden, inexplicable curiosity to explore the cottage came upon her. A narrow aisle opened into the bedroom, and further down, the kitchen. Meeta walked into the bedroom and looked around. Besides an ancient double bed and a teak cupboard, it held a small writing table. Meeta had already looked in the cupboard thoroughly before putting her clothes away, for fear of pests, and knew there was nothing of interest there. She turned to the desk. It bore some of her books and papers. The drawer was locked. She had tried to open it on the day of her arrival, but finding it locked, and being in a hurry, had given it up for later. Now, pulling out the bunch of keys she had been given, she tried every single one of them until she found the one that unlocked the drawer. She slid it open.

The drawer held a single satin glove. Now stained with age, in its better days it had been a very pretty lilac. Meeta picked it up carefully. It wasn’t just age that caused the stain, but a splash of coffee or something else that had probably spilt on the tiny hand that must have worn it once.

"What a queer place for a glove! And not even a pair." She replaced the glove carefully and locked the drawer.
Meeta thought about what the gardener had told her. She dismissed his idea as an unreasonable fancy. She decided to go back to work and clear her head of all the strange thoughts that had been occupying it this past hour. "There is no mystery here, after all. This cottage is at quite a distance from the town. Not many houses in the vicinity, either. Quite likely nobody wanted to stay here."

Meeta went for a walk in the evening. The rain clouds had cleared away and the sky was streaked with sun-splashed rivers of pink. A fresh breeze blew across her face and through her hair, rejuvenating her. She walked towards the edge of a cliff and looked out at the vast valley spread underneath. The lights were coming on in the towns and twinkled like clusters of stars against the silhouetted mountains.

A sudden strong scent wafted towards her, borne by the gentle evening wind. It wasn’t unpleasant; it reminded her of delicately scented flowers, like a mix of everything that was dainty and feminine.

"Good evening." A voice like the tinkle of silver bells spoke over the whisper of the wind. Meeta turned to behold a petite, neatly dressed young woman, her hands wrapped tight inside her shawl. "You are the new tenant of Hazel Cottage, I presume?"

Meeta stared at the newcomer. She was beautiful, with creamy white skin and expressive light brown eyes. Then, remembering her manners, she smiled. "Yes, I am."

"It is good to have that place tenanted again. Such a shame that a lovely house like that should lie unused."

"Do you know anything about it?" Meeta asked eagerly, her curiosity whetted.

"Oh yes, I do. It’s a famous story…anybody here would tell you. The house was a wedding gift to a young English bride from her parents. A pretty, good-natured girl was Louisa- wouldn’t hurt a fly. She had a husband who loved her more than his life, and they were a very happy couple. She was very possessive, though- she guarded the house preciously, and would not let anybody in. She believed the house was inhabited by their own souls and spirits, and never took very kindly to anybody else moving in, even for a couple of days. When she died, her husband moved back to England. The house has been inhabited once or twice since, but never for long periods."

The woman looked into the distance. "Louisa detested strangers." Something in the tone she said it in sent a shiver down Meeta’s spine. She turned over all that she had just heard in her mind. After a while she spoke, rather uncertainly.

"The gardener told me something rather strange today- that the house was haunted. I mean, who believes in ghosts now?"

The woman turned to Meeta with an expression she couldn’t read. "Indeed…nobody does."

A few more minutes of silence ensued, and the woman spoke again. "I must be leaving now. Good night." She smiled and walked away. Meeta watched as she drew out her hands and settled her shawl over her shoulders, gradually fading into the distance. Something about her hands struck Meeta as weird, but a piercing cry drew her attention away. Meeta’s heart skipped a beat- a shadowy form flew by.

"It is just an owl…what are you doing here so late, anyway? Go home." Meeta heard the raspy voice of the gardener. He shuffled past her, carrying a basketful of herbs he had collected in the hills.

Meeta slept fitfully that night. Though sleep overcame her as soon as she lay down, it was a disturbed slumber. Strange dreams floated through her mind- she saw a pair of dainty hands, empty desk drawers, old gardeners. A sudden thud awoke her, and she sat up in bed. The windows were open and the thin muslin curtains bobbed cheerfully as the wind swirled in through the windows. Something disturbed her, but she couldn’t make out what it was.

Her mind in a muddle, Meeta stumbled out of bed. She couldn’t think- but a nerve throbbed and haphazard images flew through her head. From the corner of her eye, she caught a movement somewhere in the room. She turned around wildly, and saw the drawer of the desk hanging precariously from its niche. She rushed up to it and stared into it. It was empty.

Had an intruder broken in? Was she being robbed? She turned over her pillow. Her bunch of keys, the only bunch for this cottage as the agent had assured her, was still there. Who had opened the drawer? Questions chased one another through Meeta’s mind and, feeling faint and helpless as if some preternatural force were choking her, she made her way to the open window. A blast of cold air hit her hard, and her senses immediately seemed to restore themselves. She became aware of a lingering scent- she knew it…it was the perfume of the woman she had met that evening on the cliff.

The moon, until now veiled by a solitary cloud, broke out into the dark sky and shone on the garden in full splendour. A spectral figure stood a few metres away from the window. The posture was familiar, as was the fabric around its shoulders. Meeta watched horrified. It was the same woman! And in a flash, something struck her. She had watched her arrange her shawl on the cliff- only one hand had been gloved. Meeta tried to move, to scream- but her senses were paralysed.

Now, as Meeta’s horror-struck eyes reluctantly watched, the diaphanous hands of the woman pulled on a glove- a coffee-stained, lilac glove. The face looked up, hazel eyes piercingly trained on Meeta’s stunned face, a sinister smile hovering about the full lips. The spectral woman then turned and walked on straight through the wooden gate, disappearing over the side of the hill.

Meeta packed up and moved into a hotel in town early the next morning. Nobody there had ever seen the fair-skinned woman or the old gardener. Legends abounded, but nobody tried to prove them right, for Hazel Cottage was haunted.

A year later, a young botanist rented Hazel Cottage. Exploring the house on his first day there, he unlocked the drawer of the writing desk.

An old, coffee-stained lilac glove rested in it.

A Little Bit of Romance

The mystifying strains of Kalyani wafted through the early morning air as Priti turned in bed. Motley smells floated in the air- pungent turmeric being sprinkled on the curry that the cook was frying, the floral scent of the moisturiser that Ma was applying, the strong herbal odours of the sticky oil Paati was anointing her winter-benumbed limbs with.

Priti recollected that she had a week of vacation left. One whole week! She had spent just three days in this obscure village in the depths of Tamil Nadu, but had already seen and done everything she possibly could. She had romped through the fields, singing to herself; she had watched the agile-limbed boys swim like fish in the white bubbling waters of the river; she had helped the girls make floral garlands, though clumsily and feeling rather like a foreigner because of her urban upbringing. She had woven Paati’s smooth, rippling silver hair into innumerable plaits and grown sick of the onslaught of Carnatic music- the form that seemed to form the very soul of this remote village. She had spent the afternoons reading with the warm sunlight on her face and indulging in siestas in the courtyard. She had done absolutely everything. When would she be back in Chennai?

The sun-kissed morning breeze brushed softly through the boughs of the sturdy trees as Priti made her way through the maze to the little pool that the ancient house overlooked. Save for a solitary bird’s heart-warming song on a distant tree, all was quiet and tranquil. Through a narrow gap in the crumbling wall, Priti emerged into the clearing and gazed at the clear surface of the pool. This was the first really clean body of water she had seen in her fourteen years of life, and it quite amazed her. In fact, almost everything about this tiny village was amazing. It seemed incongruous, like some wizard had cast a spell on it and cursed (or blessed) it, preventing it from moving with the times while all the surrounding areas fell victim to the vices of urbanisation.

Priti watched two butterflies chase each other around a clump of brightly coloured wild flowers. The sky was a dreamy blue, not a trace of cloud on the sun-splashed canvas. A mellow, ethereal light bathed the clearing. The pool glimmered like a giant star. "If I were not fourteen", said Priti to her reflection in the still water, "I’d believe there were dryads at work here."

"And what makes you think you are too old for such ideas now?"

Priti jumped. She turned around to find her grandmother looking at her solemnly, eyes smiling, however, in the wizened face.

"Oh, Paati, I didn’t know you were here."

"Evidently not, my dear, or you wouldn’t have spoken your thoughts aloud, would you? Anyway, what is wrong with believing in dryads at fourteen? I still do."

"Really?" Priti turned away to hide a smile. "You’re just saying that to make me feel better."

"I do believe in nymphs and fairies and every other pretty creature fantasy can conjure up. All romantic people do."

Priti looked into Paati’s eyes. "You can’t be romantic now, at this age."

"Yes, I can. Come along, I want to show you something."

Priti was not very happy, as she was sure Paati was making fun of her and, in fact, treating her like a child. But she decided to humour her and followed her around the outside of the pool, into a copse of closely-growing trees. They were tall, healthy old trees, their branches extending heavenwards, intertwining and forming a sort of leafy canopy through which sunlight fell in shafts. One of the trees, Priti noticed, was stunted and not quite as strong or imposing as the others. There was a little hollow in its deformed trunk.

Paati led her to the hollow and asked her to put her hand in. Priti recoiled. "There might be snakes in there!"

"Now, Priti, I thought you were braver than your mother," remonstrated Paati. "She reacted just as you did when I brought her here, several years ago. I decided then that she had not a spark of imagination in her. Of course, she is just like her father, but I hoped her daughter wouldn’t turn out the same. Unfortunately, you seem to take after her…let us go home." There was a strange tinge of despair in her voice as she turned away and beckoned Priti to follow.

"Paati, please wait! I…I’ll do it. I really want to. Please!" Priti did not know what drove her to say this, it was all done on an impulse. Maybe there was magic in the air.

Paati turned, a smile playing on her lips. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely."

"Go ahead, then."

Not knowing what to expect, Priti stuck her arm into the hollow. Something soft and lumpy met her hand, and she clutched the thing and drew it out tentatively.

A bundle of unknown treasures wrapped in faded magenta silk was what Priti held in her hands.

"Come here, Priti," said Paati, clearing away some branches with her wrinkled hands to reveal a small wooden bench. "Sit here and open the bundle", she said, sinking down herself with a sigh and leaning her back against a tree trunk.

Priti obeyed. Her fingers eagerly undid the bundle. What an assortment of things her eyes beheld! Tiny wooden vessels that once must have been the playthings of a young girl; a wooden couple united in matrimony in some distant era; dolls in different shapes and sizes, colour peeling off their painted clothes or brocade tearing off their old silk skirts; sheets of paper bound with string.

"Paati, what is all this?" Priti asked in wonder, as she fingered the dusty old toys with reverence. She wiped her hands carefully on her skirt and picked up the yellowed papers.

"My toys."

"Yours?" Priti looked up in astonishment. "You mean, you actually played with these things all those years ago, and you still have them?"

Paati smiled at Priti’s incredulity. "Yes; I was married when I was twelve. I realised I wouldn’t want them any longer, and in a fit of anger, wrapped them up and threw them into this hollow when I came here as a new bride."

"And these sheets?"

"Oh, those are some childish verses I wrote," said Paati, taking them into her hands and peering closely at the neatly written lines, now faded with age. "I always liked to write, but when I was married, I realised I wouldn’t have time to do what I loved most. I was very upset and I just wrapped up these sheets with all the toys."

Priti looked up at her grandmother with newfound admiration. "How unfortunate, Paati! All your talent wasted."

"Oh no, not all my talent…I was a good singer, and your Thatha always encouraged me to sing. He was extremely fond of music; he bought me an MS blue saree when he went to Madras, and always wanted me to sing when I wore it."

"But did you actually love him? I mean, he cut your childhood short, took away from you what you liked best…"

"No, he didn’t," said Paati, with some force. "When he came to know of my wish to write, he supported me in every way. I kept putting it off then, and the children came along…I would tell myself, just one more year, and then I’ll begin work on my magnum opus. It never happened, but I don’t regret it. I’ve had many other beautiful things, Priti. Most of them are now memories, and the good thing about them is that they never wear away through constant recollection. People call me a recluse, but I’m not one. My memories are with me, my constant companions. What more can I want?"

"But you still have a story in your mind…" persisted Priti.

"Yes, my story…a delightful story of romance which I live everyday, which carries me through all the days of loneliness. This very bench we are sitting on is a part of it…your Thatha made it so we could sit here on moonlit nights and spend time in solitude, away from the rest of the family. We kept coming here together till he died. And then I came here alone, but I knew he was here too, in spirit. He is, now, watching us talk." A strange, dreamy look came into her grandmother’s eyes as she looked up at the sky through the foliage. Priti followed her gaze. She slipped her young hand into her grandmother’s work-hardened, tired palm.

"Am I romantic, Paati?"

"Can you feel the Presence, Priti?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Then you are. Remember not to outgrow the romance, Priti. It will carry you through life, when you are sad, happy or lonely, just like the sun, the moon and the stars accompany you wherever you go, even if your earthly companions don’t."

A Sunday Afternoon Escapade

Half past one. Jatin peered into the hall to see if the coast was clear, if he could silently let himself out of the house. Lunch was long over, Ma must be having her afternoon nap, but he’d peek into the bedroom and make sure anyway. Just when he was about to step out of his room, his mother sailed into the hall from the kitchen, wiping her hands. She sank into the sofa and picked up the TV remote. Jatin slammed his hand against his forehead. How could he have forgotten! The Sunday recipe show! Now Ma would be in the hall for another half-hour before she went in for her siesta.

The thirty minutes dragged on like ages, as Jatin bit his nails and stared out of the window. Naren must have reached the stadium. Jatin berated himself with some colourful phrases. Why, oh why, had he broken that vase last week? His mother wouldn't have forbidden him from going out if he had been at his best behaviour. Jatin fumed. He didn't understand all the fuss over a sculpted piece of coloured china, and all he knew was that its existence, or rather its demise, was preventing him from going to the tennis match with a clear conscience. He'd begged, pleaded with his mother all week; even offered to baby-sit his pesky little sister whenever she wanted. But Ma was being unreasonable. It wasn't as if Rafael Nadal visited India everyday. Sure, his opponent was a non-entity, but that didn’t matter. If his father were in town, he'd somehow convince her to let him go, and serve out the remainder of his punishment later. Women! They simply had no idea of what really mattered. They didn't understand how much more important cricket, football and tennis were than Geography and Science.

At last, Ma was in her room. Jatin waited another five minutes, then cautiously looked in. Yes, she was asleep...even snoring in a rather embarrassing manner. He also made sure his sister was asleep and not watching him so she could wake their mother and get him into trouble. He'd manage Ma when he returned. He'd get her an autograph, perhaps, or if lucky enough, a wristband. But he did doubt if his mother would value a sweaty wristband as much as he would.

Slowly, warily, Jatin slipped out of the front door. Stepping out on the porch, he almost fell over his lazy dog Max, who, oblivious to the rest of the world and its cares, was enjoying a noon nap as well. Max opened one eye, saw it was only Jatin and no intruder (not that he would have done much had it been one), and went back to sleep. Jatin grinned his lopsided grin- summer was definitely the best time for such escapades, when the heat sapped everyone's energy, except of course twelve-year-old boys'. His mother was an exception too, because it only served to irritate her more, and he was sure to have an earful when he returned. But who cared? Right now, he was off to be overawed by a star!

Jatin ran like crazy. The sun beat down mercilessly upon the isolated streets. There was not the slightest hint of a breeze. Undeterred, Jatin legged it to the stadium at top speed, stopping finally when he saw Naren at the gates, waiting impatiently, spinning around in agony whenever a cheer sounded from inside. There was no time for explanations; Naren grabbed Jatin's hand, and the two handed over their tickets (coutesy Naren's father) to the security guard and rushed straight in.

Settled into their seats finally, Naren turned to Jatin. "Next time, you'd better be on time, or I'll bring someone else along", whispered Naren furiously. "We're fifteen minutes late, and Nadal is probably going to bagel the man, which will hardly leave us with anything to watch."

"Sorry", mumbled Jatin, and embarked on a breathless explanation. The rest of the match passed off in relative peace; they clapped, they cheered. They also had an important conversation.

"We have to take back something today, at least an autograph. We need to teach Mani a lesson. He's been strutting around proudly ever since his father managed to get him a Michael Schumacher-signed cap. It's not something he earned on his own!" said Naren. "And he doesn't even admit it."

"Yes; and I need something to show Ma, to tell her what I'd have missed if I hadn't come here today", added Jatin. He turned around, surveying the crowd. A motley group; there were even some elderly men among the spectators, sitting a few rows in front. He recognised one of them- Mani's grandfather. Funny; wasn’t he a little too old for this stuff? Naren saw him too, and whispered to Jatin: "Mani’s grandpa here! Strange; I was sure he would be home napping." Both Naren and Jatin liked Mani's grandfather despite his weird sense of humour and feeble jokes; he was always ready with many fantastic anecdotes. In fact, he was more popular than his grandson.

The match ended in a predictable straight-sets victory for Nadal. He punched the air with his fists, shook hands with his beaten opponent, and then...slipped his wristband off and threw it into the stands. Jatin and Naren stood up, excited. It was coming towards them, in their direction. They stretched and grabbed at it...their hands locked, but the band slipped out and fell. Shocked, they glared at each other. However there was nothing they could do about it; it was irretrievably gone.

Naren and Jatin were locked in a verbal duel. They were both very disappointed, and blamed each other for being clumsy.

"That's it; I'm not going with you to any more matches!" declared Naren in a fit of anger.

"Why do you think I want you to?" retorted Jatin, equally upset. They looked away from each other, forgetting even to go and try to get an autograph. They stared straight ahead...and saw something strange.

Mani's grandfather was hopping gleefully like a child, waving the prized wristband in his wrinkled fist. His friends were clapping his back, cheering him. As Jatin and Naren watched, he made his way up to the exit. He didn’t see the boys; he didn’t even know the souvenir in his possession had slipped from their grasp. A dozen pairs of hands had gone up simultaneously when the wristband was thrown, and had Mani’s grandfather espied his two young friends fighting to get at it, he would have gladly made them a benevolent gift, notwithstanding his desire to prove himself to his grandson.

"Mani said I was too old for sport. He laughed at me when I said I was going to the match. He said I wouldn't be able to get a souvenir. This will show him! I'm not old...I'm as fit as anybody else!" As excited as a child with a new toy, Mani's grandfather hobbled out of the arena with his friends.

Jatin looked at Naren. All of a sudden, the lost wristband didn't matter much. They smiled, each instinctively knowing what the other was thinking.

"My dad says he'll get us passes for next week's India-England cricket match. We'll get to see Andy Flintoff! Make sure you don't break any more vases."

"Yes, and Daddy will be back tomorrow in any case, so I'm safe! I'll have to deal with my mum tonight, though", said Jatin, appearing slightly crestfallen. There was a momentary silence. Then Naren had an idea.

"Let's go for some ice-cream now. We'll worry about your mum later!" And off they went, forgetting their cares for the present.