Dog Days

TWENTY years after they had parted, she spotted his dark frame in the fierce glow of the sun in Mumbai. After the initial sense of befuddlement, she said, “Let's go to Mondegar Café.“
Surprisingly, her lost lover looked younger by 20 years. His sprightly self appeared almost magically, like an oasis to quench the thirst of a weary traveller.

Summer had brought back her lost passion and she felt exhilarated; was eager to enclose the elusive realty in a time warp and stay suspended in her own zone.

She thought, “Is he married?“ But, did it matter if he was married? She sensed the approaching loo, the hot summer storm blowing off the dust from memories of yore. She felt content and happy.

As they walked through the crowded thoroughfare, the sun beat fiercely on the charred road. She saw beads of sweat on his temple, wrinkled eyes, twitched nose and sensuous lips. The intense heat, dust and the scorched earth seemed to ignite the desires of the young and the old hearts.

Mondegar Café lane was populated with sweating people, speeding up and down the road, brushing against each other as they yelled maniacally.

The aroma of barbecued meat, chello kebab mingled with the Mughlai flavours of her hometown Delhi wafted through the burning inferno. In strident white sparks, she saw a vivid face, loving gestures and longing heart, looking into her eyes.

She was tempted to hide inside the icy-cool roadside inn. She saw him slowly merge with the white glow of the sun, leaving only remnants of him in the occasional breeze from gulmohar and neem trees.

Then, perhaps, roused by the sadness in her eyes, a band of pigeons fell out of the sheltered nest, tumbled frantically in the still, sizzling area, sorted out their way and streaked away across the white sky.

She walked into the café and immersed her divine nostalgia in slow sips of chilled beer. Outside, Mumbai in the afternoon turned into a vast abyss, an infernal city full of secret fire.

Meghna Maiti

House Hunting

At the age of 25, the sense of disillusionment with one’s own self is real. So, I was disappointed when the lousy landlord did not wish to extend my lease and asked me to vacate the flat within a week. His son, who earns in dollars, was coming back soon to inhabit the pigeonhole of a place. The smudge on the wall needed to be painted, faulty plumbing repaired and the nuisances of ownership shifted. The baggage of someone’s existence had to be replaced by another set.

As I puttered around my room, sat stiffly on my mattress and surveyed the room, its cheap mosaic floor, the ramshackle bookshelf and cupboard and the arcane dressing unit, all that had become my own, an inexplicable sadness drowned me. It was the sort of place that had shown me the path to independence of mind and character with its exclusionary nature. Even the quotidian extravagances of daily life, which included making my bed and doing the chores were pleasurable because it was there I met with my lost self. Since at my age the sense of self is often blurred, my decision to stay alone in this house for the first time was for both good and bad.

A house broker from the neighbourhood, who is an agent and a part of a big network of real estate chains, consoled me, grinned his lopsided Shah Rukh Khan smile and said, “Don’t worry. Such small things happen in big cities. I will get you the best place within your budget.”

Over the days, I came to terms with my transient state. The cold gaze and unfriendly welcome of landlords did not bother me anymore. I started looking at each home stay as the accustomed rituals and formalities of arrival and departure. Each visit gave way to a larger journey. I was prepared to arrive and go, welcome a temporary imagined future and greet a new identity each time. And in that transition, in between two homes, I learnt to get liberated from the uncomfortable truth that the time would soon come to end the trip.

Meghna Maiti