Time, please
Filtered sunshine is the color of a reprieve. Elbow past crowds at the station. Watch the Bikaner- Bandra Ranakpur Express clatter by, what terrains it must have flashed past. Gaze at the clips on a hawker’s stand in the local train compartment, they shimmer and dance as the train moves, a fifty, hundred designs to go for five and ten rupees. Reach a landmark that everyone knows, ask for directions like an idiot. Wander through winding lanes with huddled shops and quaint parsi names on the boards, cycles and two wheelers parked any which way, children at gully cricket, bruns and toast on sale on a holiday morning. Look at some of the impeccably preserved facades, one townhouse-like building in particular in pink and white trim, Nariman villa, established 1924, the nameplate proudly says. Some buildings rundown, an arch and alley that looks like a British Raj–relic in burnished grey. “No parking. Tyres will be deflated”,reads a sign on a collapsible gate. Finally ask for instructions at a shop selling silver picture frames, the shopowner is relaxing, newspaper in hand, his feet on the glass counter. Reach the building, debate how exactly to put in an order for a pair of specs with a rosy view of the world, please. Climb up the grand balustrade-lined wooden staircase to find the door LOCKED. Closed Sundays, the sign reads. Turn around and go home, whistling.Then you remind yourself, its only time-out, just a reprieve.
(from Sunday, to catch up by and by, will add pic later)