by Tabish Khair
Ravi had left me behind again. I stopped. He turned around and peered at me quizzically, an eyebrow raised ironically, as he sometimes did.
Look, I said to him and pointed to the exit, which had suddenly come closer. Outside, the taxi drivers, relatives, acolytes, tourist guides, placard-bearers had metamorphosed into a mob.
They were still staying in place, behind the metal barricades. But the placards had changed into weapons: trishuls, spears, lathis, crescent-shaped swords. It was the same noise, though, spilling around us like the brilliant sunshine outside. All these people were still waiting to receive us, it appeared. Some were even smiling. But now, in place of placards, they were waving weapons and flags: green flags, saffron flags, white flags.
Ravi looked at the mob and turned back to me. He shrugged his shoulders and made a gesture for me to follow him. But I stood where I was. He looked again at me, the same quizzical look, eyebrow raised. I shook my head.
Ravi laughed. He had a clear, hearty laugh. The airport rang with it in my dream. Then, still laughing, he walked into the crowd of weapons raised to greet him, the noise and sunshine that swallowed him in a split second.
I looked around and realized that I was not in Mumbai airport after all. I was in a car, a Hyundai i10 parked on Kastelsvej, holding a small plastic container. On the container was a label with a name written on it which I could not read: the name never ended no matter how much I revolved the container. I knew I did not have the time to keep revolving the container. I had to keep the engine running, waiting for my chance. I knew I had to be quick. Dawn was about to break. A sliver of sunshine would pierce the overcast sky and fall on the wet, grey earth. I had to be fast. I had to fill my plastic container with the meager sunshine that would penetrate the clouds, fall fleetingly on the ground. I doubted it would be sufficient. I feared it would never be sufficient.
I remember thinking in my dream, even as I woke up feeling thirsty, that it is not just manufacturers of plastic containers who overestimate the capacity of man.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks are due to Isabelle Petiot, for her generous understanding and feedback; to Sébastien Doubinsky, Indra Sinha, Matt Bialer, Mita Kapur, Caspian Dennis, V.K. Karthika, Ellen Dengel-Janic, Maria Beville, Aamer Hussein, Sharmilla Beezmohun, Renuka Chatterjee, Shashi Tharoor, Mohsin Hamid, Nicole Angeloro, Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, Saugata Mukherjee, Charlotte Day, Etgar Keret, Jim Hicks, Michel Moushabeck, Hilary Plum, Zac O’Yeah and Ole Birk Laursen for feedback and faith; to Jamal Bhai, Dominic, Matthias, Christopher, Joe and Simon for coffee and conversation; to Hana Hasanbegovic, Jane L. Didriksen and Afsir Mama for a word each in three different languages; and to a host of “Eng Lit” writers, mostly dead, for necessary echoes, sometimes even duly acknowledged.