What’s changed?

She’s here. She’s finally here. After leaving Lokhandwala at 17:00 and being in Bandra by 18:57. Three years since we last saw her, that she’s only an hour late is a revolution.

She’s eating a sandwich and laughing away. She’s asked for black coffee with milk on the side. She’s talking at the speed of sound and its difficult to keep up. The sandwich and the coffee wait for the words to make space for them.

Her sense of style seems familiar. The clothes hang loose and flap in the wind. She talks of people long gone and the love and care flies proud, an invisible flag that’s only heard.

Old haunts with old friends. Both seem new.

She cannot walk on Mumbai roads anymore without waiting for traffic to cease. Her feet are rooted between a scooter and a building, even as her mind and heart are running a race without a finish line.

She calls the driver to where we are sitting.
“Let’s stand by the side of the road.”
We do.
“I don’t get why.”
“What car was it?”
“Don’t know.”
“Big or small?”
“Ummmm…”
“That’s why we’re standing, so the driver recognises her.”

She has returned to the country of her birth. The country, meanwhile, has turned into a different beast from the one she knew. She leaves the road and goes back home to the oasis that is her family.

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