... scribbles...

She pushed the wild purple flower, trying hard not to break it from it stalk. The bag of vegetables and papayas stood slumped on the ground. Beneath the bush, there was no telling where the ground sloped towards the playground. Her feet were firmly set on the ground, and she parted the bush aside, and craned. Any time now, she thought, the little iron bell would be rung by the ayah and the kids would come milling out. How would she spot her girl, she wondered. But another intuition suggested that she wouldn’t have a hard time spotting her. The first intuition was what drove her to the edge of the road, sneaking behind wild bushes, peering into the school grounds, on her way back home from the market. Today, she thought, she would see her little one in another world. The bell rung for the morning break. Ayahs in sari and cardigans instead of blouses walked around the ground as kids tottered out. 4 to 10 year olds, in maroon sweaters, and blue skirts and pant, bumping into each other...

Each time I think about us, I think about the smell of your sleep lingering in the bedroom. As soon I wake up, I wouldn’t smell a thing. But as I return to the bedroom from the bathroom, I wouldn’t have to see you there, lying splattered like a bat on the bed cover, to know that you were there- I could feel the air telling me that. Does everyone have a smell in their sleep? You definitely did. What was it, a smell of your drool, or your farts, or your sweat? Or was it the smell of your thoughts and dreams that went unsaid as you lay down next to me? Was that what I thought I was smelling- the perfumes of all those men and women, whom you claimed you had loved before me, and along with me, all arising from you, as you slept, trying to get away from your dreams as far as possible. Somehow, that smell was the sign of our intimacy. What I couldn’t find while we were in bed, naked, or close to naked or what I searched for in the movement of your eyes as you slept, that I could whiff in ...