[Part two of the ‘Visiting Home’ series. Can be read as an independent piece too.]

The next morning, after a breakfast of idlis and mint chutney, I set out for a walk in the neighbourhood. Our six storey apartment building was at the end of a small street, facing a cul-de-sac, and it broke the pattern formed by one or two or three storey houses that dominated the three hundred or so yards of this street. Most of these houses were either new or had a new first or second floor extension, often built in a way that showed, through a different shade of paint or a bolder architecture, the contrast between old and new. They were built on small plots, and except for a rectangular space delineating a small car park, only a couple of feet separated these houses from the brick walls that surrounded them. In a small recess within one such wall was a Ganesha idol, a bronze figure smeared generously with kumkum; the Remover of Obstacles sat behind a grilled door secured by a lock. The houses had wrought iron gates, unwieldy constructions that creaked when opened, with a ‘No Parking In Front Of Gate’ sign often accompanied by an advertisement – Rukmini Jewelers: Diamond is a woman’s best friend; IIT coaching: for your son’s bright future – in small letters, as if inviting someone to park and look at the message. There were no trees on either side of the street, a condition some houses had tried to remedy with a sapling, protectively enclosed behind a transparent wire mesh, planted next to their gate.

Soon I heard shouts of a game in progress: five or six boys, dressed in rags, were playing cricket at an intersection. Nearby, at the edge of an empty plot, a thin woman in a faded purple nightie sat scrubbing an aluminum utensil, and the water she used drained into the roadside gutter, making a sound that echoed the piss of a boy, probably her son, relieving himself into a puddle. Close to this puddle were two dogs, foraging a rubbish dump. On the opposite side was a gleaming white car, a model of Honda I did not recognize. Ahead, where the street narrowed before joining the main road, a cluster of shops and signs on either side – a sweets-and-cakes shop, a hardware store, a small ‘standing’ restaurant with a paan-wallah attached to it, an internet center above a stationery store, a signboard with directions to an ‘International Astrologer’ – formed a busy conclusion to this quiet lane.
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1. Arrival

It was my sixth visit home in ten years, a first in summer. I had avoided visiting India in summer, afraid to confront again the effects of heat which, after these long years in a cold country, was like a distant unpleasant memory. That summer, a gloomy May of an unhappy year, I was in the middle of a difficult phase at work, so when a two week interval came up I decided to visit home, to switch off completely, instead of taking the usual hiking trip to Austria or to Switzerland.

On my way, during a stopover at Dubai airport, which in truth is a gigantic mall with gates and terminals appended as an afterthought, I picked up dates, raisins, and cashews for Ma. Then, as I waited at the gate for boarding to commence, I spotted a bird, a tiny creature with a yellow breast, brilliant blue wings, and a small beak, perched lightly on a flight information screen. I had only begun to wonder where it had come from when the bird took flight and disappeared into an enclosure – in the middle of this giant terminal – with pine-like trees, bushes, and grass, all of them so polished and dust-free that I couldn’t figure if they were real or not.

When boarding was announced I walked up to the gate and, still thinking about the bird, I handed my passport, rather absentmindedly, over to the lady in front. As she flipped through the booklet I turned around, hoping to catch another glimpse of the bird. Would you turn this way so that I can see your face please, the lady said, in a steady no-nonsense voice, and turning back I found myself looking into her eyes, sharp and purposeful, and then, lowering my gaze as she went back to the passport, I saw her badge, which listed a long Arabic name and her title: Security Officer. She was a young woman of dark complexion, an oval face, hair tied into a bun, small mouth, lipstick the color of blood. A character out of a David Lynch movie.
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