24.7.09

Written at the L&T Orientation Programme

When I was on the bus to Haji Ali last evening, I noticed a house. All that was available to the eye, from my vantage point on the road, was the verandah on the first floor, with a couple of windows open. The windows allowed a peek into what could be the outermost "layer": clotheslines, spare mattresses stacked one on top of another, toys from another era, peeling paint, rusting pot stands, corroding aluminium on the windows themselves.

It was a feeling of deja vu. As if I have been told about this house, this verandah, this place before. A few years ago, may be. And then it strikes where, by whom I was told. I remember exactly my source of this prior description. Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance told me.

What came as a surprise though, was how close the house was to the vicinity where I live. And how close to the description's likeness.

Bombay takes me back to books now.

Nerd.

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