Now that the rain has finally stopped, I sit by the window, listen to the slow drip of water from the leaves of the palm trees. It is good to be back in Bombay in time for the monsoon.
From my fourth floor window, I watch the fishmonger pass by, his voice like a ragged tear in the fabric of my Sunday calm. In this newlywashed morning even his cry seems clean, unbloodied.
On his head he carries a basket loaded with fish. As I watch, a first shaft of sunlight breaks through the clouds and the scales of the fish gleam silver.
Seeing his thin, barechested form plodding along under the weight of that reflected radiance, I think of the history that walks unnoticed through our streets. Of the glory of our lost kings, our vanished empires. Of all the discarded and broken crowns lying at the bottom of the sea.
He turns the corner and disappears. I am left with only this empty road, its surface still slick with the morning's showers.
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