A collection of short stories that are, well, short.
Anuradha awoke. Suprisingly enough, she had slept rather well. She hadn't expected to. It was, after all, the first time she had stepped out of the protective confines of home and family.
She sat on the bed and stretched. The other bed in the room was occupied. It hadn't been, the previous night. Another young girl, roughly the same age as Anuradha, was lying on it. She was sleeping peacefully.
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It was another Sunday morning. P. Srinivasa Murthy sat down in his arm-chair by the window with The Times Of India. He read all the depressing front-page headlines. "17 gunned down in Kashmir." "Economic situation grim, says Finance Minister." "Zimbabwe trounce India by 8 wickets." For some comic relief, he turned to - not Garfield, Beetle Bailey, Hagar the Horrible and Co., but to - the matrimonial page.
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"So...when do you propose to pop the question?" she asked in between sips of Marquis de Pompadour. "Before dessert or after?"
The hors d'oeuvre froze in motion in its path from the platter to the mouth. "Question? What question?" he blurted eventually.
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The phone hadn't rung for several months. Not since that Navroz day when both Maneck and Daisy had called from the States to wish him and had given him such glowing accounts of his grandchildren's achievements. Adil had been accepted at Harvard, and Anahita was going to gift him his first great-grandchild. Rustomji had kept replaying the phone conversations in his mind all these days, but they weren't working their magic any longer. That familiar empty feeling was gnawing at him again. "Dadar Hormazd, call me soon," he cried out loud.
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The last dying rays of the evening sun gently reflected off the dull enameled surface of the bedpan, as they silently stole away through the open window. In the air, the stale smell of disinfectant hung around. Earlier, in the morning, the bedpan had been vigorously washed with water and Dettol, and placed under the bed. It had not been disturbed since; the thin layer of dust covering the bedpan bore proof to that. It is one of the professional hazards of bedpannery to be splattered with excrement, and to remain dry and untainted through an entire working day, especially when you are the property of an eighty year old man with little control over his legs and even less over his bowels, is no mean achievement. If the bedpan were human, it would have basked contentedly in that dying evening light. If the bedpan were human, it would have also heard the ayah�s shrill voice having its say over the very same state of affairs.
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Today is my daughter�s wedding day.
In my mind, I have been making plans for this day for a long time. The wedding would be at Colaba-ni-agiary. A December breeze blowing in from the sea, the sound of the waves breaking at the rocks near the boundary wall, and the sweet-spicy aroma of Godiwala�s sali-ma-marghi wafting in from the kitchen. My Anahita, resplendent in her shimmering white saree, smiling her shy smile. Goolu fussing about her. The guests murmuring to each other, ketli mitthi laagech. And as the band would strike up �Here comes the bride�, I would escort her down to the flower-decked stage, and laughingly remind her about the time she used to tell us how much she hated boys and that she was never ever going to marry one, never, never, never.
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