untitled

Sitting there slightly bent at his usual place at the table, he stares deep into the mosaic floor. These things are all transient, he says to me without looking up…after rattling off some figure in crores. His memory hazy… he recalls with so much pride the flat he bought way back in the early 70’s. After a full life, he now contemplates losing the last one big thing that was his…that had HIS name!

The world’s a blur around him now as his family whizzes in n out anxiously salvaging all that remains – memories, fragments, furniture, heritage, photographs, sarees, more memories. I don’t pick up anything…nothing here in mine…instead, I pick up moments…fractions really. Faces... in extreme close up…eyes, fingers, an outstretched hand…dust, light, shadow…over a hundred in one day! I surprise myself.

A smile breaks through…eyes moisten…laughter bounces off the bare walls…i move from room to room, face to face…the fragile soul slowly revealing…diving deeper. An email from afar ruptures the cracks, the floodgates burst open… I still don’t have the nerve “to make the final cut”!