759, 758: Fiction: What’s that thing you see?

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“Sheetal! Sheetal! Come here for a second!”

“What now?!”, Sheetal yelled from the bedroom. “Your socks aren’t going to untangle themselves.”
“Just come here. Please!”, Rohit yelled again.

Sheetal came to where Rohit stood – in the cute, tiny strip of balcony in their spanking new flat in Gurgaon. A withering plant in the corner caught her eye. “Hey! Didn’t I water this rosemary bush yesterday? Why’s it so…”

“What’s that?”, Rohit interrupted. He pointed through his plume of smoke at the opposite building. 

“In that flat over there – what do you think that is?”

Beyond Rohit’s finger, lay the vast beautiful Gurgaon sky. A bank of grey clouds moved against an evening canvas that spread conjugations of pink. Sheetal peered.

“That’s…a rack of some sort. A cupboard, a…I don’t know…some shelves.”

“It’s pointing their main door.”, Rohit pointed out. “Racks of shelves won’t be placed there.”

“Yeah…and, I think the top is a little bit circular..” Sheetal peered harder, pressing closer against the railing.

“Doesn’t it look like a woman? With a ghoonghat?”

It had started drizzling and through that wet shimmer when light blends and all of Gurgaon looks dulcet, that thing on the opposite side did look like a woman.

“Hmm…maybe so…okay, I’ve got to finish the laundry.”

“You know, it…she…hasn’t moved.”

“What?”

“I noticed that in the afternoon when we were having tea. And again when we fought. I’ve beens smoking here since then…if it’s a woman, she hasn’t moved since the last three hours.

“Maybe she doesn’t want to encourage a lech, hubby.”, Sheetal laughed and punched him in the arm. Rohit stared ahead and didn’t smile.

“Hey! Look!”, Sheetal pointed at the garden. It’s Mata ki Chowki. They’re using all those white pots in there. Maybe those guys have a puja in their house too. See? Look hard. They’re just a stack of pots. Okay…I’m going now.”

Rohit stood, stared, and stubbed his cigarette. It was dark now. It was hard to make out what that thing was. The rain was steady now. He switched off the balcony lights and turned to go in.

“Sheetal! Sheetla!”

“What!”


“That stack of pots? It just waved at me.”

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