She woke up with a smile. She loved dreams. And the one she had just had was delightful. She didn’t remember the details but it had something to do with wearing high heels and running through green fields with her friends from the village. In the dream, she was still a girl but her friends were much older. Was it Dilip Kumar they were running from or towards? It didn’t really matter; it was fun.
The move had been rough. All the challenges and problems that she had been warned against, had for the most part come true. There was too much to do, with very little help and not enough money. The apartment was in dire need of repair, the girls demanded new city clothes and the boys were always hungry. A month in though, a semblance of normalcy had returned to the household. Her eldest son, working on his degree in chemistry during the day, had secured a part time night shift job at the bottling company in Byculla, and her two elder daughters, enrolled in Sophia college, brought in some additional income as tutors. Her younger sons, seemed to have adjusted to their new school and if they were getting into trouble, she hadn’t heard about it yet. And her three year old, her bundle of joy, her baby, nestling beside her in bed and drooling all over was healthy and happy. She pulled her closer and lightly kissed her forehead. The early morning light bounced off her cracked bedroom window in a radiant blaze of colors. The humid air seemed still and heavy, holding everything in balance. Two pigeons, snuggling against each other on the window ledge, cooed almost in unison. Things could be better, she reasoned, but they could also be a lot worse.
Rolling off the bed, she surveyed the room. She needed curtains and another cupboard and a dresser with a mirror. Not a large one, but big enough to find those pesky grey hairs that had started to prop up with increasing frequency. She wasn’t ready to be old just yet. Some of her friends had started dying their hair with henna; it was Sunnah they told her, but she found red hair repugnant, and the rusty orange it turned into a few days later even more so.
She picked up the miswak by her nightstand and carefully stepping over her children sprawled across the floor, made her way to the balcony. Although wary of heights, she enjoyed watching the street below. The traffic on Sofia Zubair road was still light but in a few hours the street would wake up with the rest of the city. Police cars ferrying prisoners in and out of the Nagpada Police Station, ambulances hurrying down to JJ hospital and the constant bustle at the Neighborhood House: the homeless looking for breakfast in the morning, children playing basketball in the afternoon and often during weekends a loud and chaotic wedding celebration at night.The juice from the miswak she been chewing started to dribble from her lips, and although she liked the refreshing taste, swallowing it seemed disgusting. She leaned over the wooden rails of the balcony and spat it out, and as she followed the spitball spiraling down the four floors before hitting the pavement below with a loud and satisfying splat, she was reminded of her grandfather, a wealthy zamindar, who had elevated spitting red paan juice into an art form. Those lavish days of zamindari were long over. She had sold the last of the hereditary lands in her name, to buy this apartment. This was her land. This was her kingdom. “Zanu,” she shouted out,” where is my tea?”