Troika: Part 2

Tia was early. Half an hour early to be precise.

Tia liked Powai – the broad promenades, the cafes and the bars queued up against the promenades, the lakes that stretched languidly in a city choked for space and time, the occasional speckles of green.

She got herself a cigarette from the corner shop – not the best way to kill time, but the one she invariably reached out to at times like these. She inhaled deeply, staring at the street in front of her. The rains made the street shimmer with reflections. Borrowed light, when it had none of its own – mused Tia.

She looked around, the city seemed to look back to her with footprints of past dates – men who knew her intimately at different points of time. Each café, each rendezvous spot seemed to be a witness to fragments of a personal story shared with different ghostly presences of men.

She finished her cigarette and went inside the café. She would finish her book while waiting, she decided. But instead, she found herself wistfully looking at pictures on Facebook – family gatherings, sibling vacations, anniversary dinners. She pressed the like button on a few of them and then kept her phone down despondently.

We are but creatures groping in the dark - desperately hoping to clutch at a tiny sliver of something resembling anchorage, something that would remain constant amidst all the flux. Borrowed light, when we have none of our own…

Perhaps that’s why some people turn to religion, to faith – she thought.

Her mind drifted to the day her father bought home a copy ofWhy I am not a Christian.

Baba ki boi aanle amar jonye?

Tui podbi? Bertrand Russell - Erom teekhshyo mon, jhorjhore alor moton…

Kaise ho aap? She looked up.