The Inherited Custody

CHAPTER VII

The sun beamed, shaped like a divine fruit, bending due to the trees, like fractured bones, soaring through the cracks of the leaves, the dark and unknown structure of the lone woman standing in the way.

Holed shadows like bubble-wraps splayed across the thin cut of bright, sharp, and short blades of freshly drenched grass. Under them, the grasshoppers rubbed their hands in namaste, and a squeaky sound echoed through the wet mud. The grass danced to the rhythm of the whistling wind.

The suburb was as crowded as it should've been. Fire rumbled in a roar throughout the urbanization of the area, the schools for girls, the bus stand, and train stations.

The most astonishing things about the city stood as borders, where the Rich and Poor, the Hindu and the Muslim, the Trans and the Straight, the Gone and the Coming, all somehow cramped together, in small spaces, may it be on the sides of the roads or in the chawls of the slummy areas.

Even though it crawled and floated over the sea, Bombay was never damp enough. The warmth would rise from the hard and stifling humidity in a zigzag way in the sky, winds drifting in waves of heat that made people scrunch their faces, cover it with handkerchiefs or scarves. Whether it was the moon or the sun, the earth remained toasted. And people kept living, walking, working with nothing more than helplessness and habit.

The city echoed of so many things- crows and sparrows and pigeons, horns of trucks and cars, trings of the bicycle bells, the barking of stray dogs, the boom of men screaming or talking or fighting, of schoolgirls playing on the roadside, beggars wandering and begging at traffic signals, vendors marketing, temples ringing, cows mooing, oceans wavering, sky drifting, helicopters passing by, industries running and life just happening, the only way it did in a city like this, like a breeding ground of houseflies.