Almost there.

As the first bead of sweat trickles down the back of my neck, I smile.
Almost there.

I step on each brick with even more strength, mocking them.
Almost there.

I look behind me on an impulse. Even with so many autos, buses and cars, the road looks calm.
No one honks, no one screams, no one abuses.
As though they were robots.
I look ahead and spot the traffic signal. And the road that turns to another reality. The only road in the entire city that feels like home.

Feels like Bombay.
Where the dust blows alongside dreams.
Where people walk alongside fate.
Where they live to sweat.
As I turn into the road, it strikes me.
The smell.



June 2001.
I was 10 when I first stepped off the plane onto the soil I now call home. As I entered the city, it wasn’t the buildings, the billboards or the people that caught me.
It was the smell.

The humidity, the grime, the pollution mixed with the nauseating smell of food.
That smell.


As soon as I start to walk down this road, I feel the blanket of people surround me.

Two, incredibly tall tourists pass by me, talking about what pubs to visit.
A Muslim man with two young girls walks into the flower shop.
A dark, lanky guy rolls a joint for his friend.
A bulky Tamil lady slaps her child’s back for running away without her.

The cars honk, the people scream, the autowaalas abuse.
All that noise, confusion, grime. It’s all here.
There is no room for loneliness.
And yet there is an obscurity that only a place with so many people can offer.


A tangy smell emanates from the chaat shop to my right. The old man lifelessly flips the dosa .Above him, rests the picture of his grandfather adorned with flowers.
The picture makes me laugh. His smile looks manipulated. I can imagine his grandfather with his grumpy mustache flipping dosas lifelessly.
As I walk down the crowded alleyway, I spot a bookshop. The books stacked against the wall look old, dusty and tired. They’ve seen a lot, these yellow, shriveled pages.

The brick-lined walls of this alley are covered with moss. It’s the greenest thing on that road. The sole shade of green amongst all the grey.
As you move further down, you feel the walls coming closer, the moss growing. At a certain point you feel like it grows on you. The moss.


June 2010
As it starts to drizzle, we set up the transparent umbrella. The three of us huddle under it and talk. And eat the soggy potato wedges.
Our clothes wet, and our legs itching due to the wet grass.As we talk of the times gone by and the ones to come, I strike off the moment as one I’m going to miss in the next few months. I place another soggy potato wedge on my tongue and close my eyes.

I freeze time.

Just when I feel the moss on the wall will swallow me up, it starts to rain. The light, breezy Bangalore rain.
I run towards the makeshift bookstore with a blue plastic roof. Scores of people run around to find a roof. Some people use their briefcases.
Others walk, their faces colliding with the rain.
My college friends call me to join them in discussing the books.

I take out the soggy McDonalds potato wedges from my pocket and place it on my tongue.

As the first raindrops trickle down the back of my neck, I smile.
Almost there.



“To be here, far away, is torture…” (Kamala Das, ’ A hot noon in Malabar’.)







(Fiction)