12-09-2026, 06:17 PM
Chapter 27 – Wednesday (continued)
3 December 2025 – Wednesday
The smell that came out with her was not balm and not the other smell from Monday.
New cloth.
Starch and shop and that faint chemical sweetness packets have when they have just been opened.
“Beta, good that you came,” she said. The mother-voice was back, but it was running. “I was about to call you only. We need to go to the market quickly. I need to give the blouse for stitching. The tailor will close by nine. We have to leave now. I am sorry, I am bothering you after office, but please. Azad ji is also not home, otherwise I would have asked him. I was trying Rapido. No one is accepting. You know the traffic.”
I stepped in.
Near the folding table there were bags.
Three.
One was from a saree house whose name I had only seen on those shiny boards near Linking Road, the kind of place where a single pallu costs more than our monthly ration. The bag was thick paper, gold lettering, already empty and sitting open.
One was from a cosmetics counter. Smaller. Black and white. Also empty.
One was from a footwear brand I knew only from mall windows. Heels. Sandals. The bag had that stiff shape shops use so the box inside does not look cheap. Empty too.
Nothing left inside any of them that I could see. Only the names. The cost sitting on the table without the things.
She was already wrapping the empty bags, the old habit, folding them into smaller rectangles to keep for later. Onion, cobwebs, a wet umbrella — she stored bags the way other people store boxes. The wrapping told me the contents had already been taken out. Almirah, probably. Shelf behind the hanging blouses. Or the top of the steel trunk. I did not open anything. I only stood with the office bag still on my shoulder and the three expensive names on the wood.
She would not have bought these on house contribution alone. The thought arrived complete. Azad Sahab. Gift. Or instruction. Black saree. Matching blouse piece. Wired bra from the cosmetics bag, maybe. Heels that would make the payal sound different on a floor that was not ours.
For what.
The six o’clock thing. Or something after. Or both.
“Ohhh, ok Ma. Give me two minutes, I will just wash my face.” I said.
“Quickly, beta. Really quickly.”
The bathroom was still holding a little of the morning steam and the shampoo smell. I washed, changed the shirt for the house one, left the formal pants on because we were going out again. When I came out she was already near the door with a regular cloth bag in her hand. Folded.
“Ma, why so much hurry,” I said. “Can’t this wait for tomorrow?”
She cut across it the way she cuts across a pot that is about to boil over.
“I will tell you later. Now just come. If there is traffic we will miss him.”
No space for the next question.
We went down.
She sat on the bike the old way, one-sided, feet to the left, one hand on my shoulder. Not the tight hold of a person who is afraid of the road. The practical hold of a person who has sat like this for years and still does it when the auto does not come. The light green blouse was close to my back. I felt the warmth of her through the shirt when the bike leaned at the first turning.
On the stairs she had already told me the location of the shop. Not her usual tailor near the station road, the one who had stitched her old blouses for ten years and still used the same chalk. This was another market. Further. The kind people name when they want the cloth to look like it belongs to a different income.
Helmet on. Engine. Lane.
Talking properly was not possible. Wind. Horns. The helmet’s own echo.
At a red light I heard her phone.
She had taken it out with the hand that was not on my shoulder.
“Yes,” she said. “Sunny came. I left with him.”
A pause. The light stayed red.
“You please call the tailor shop. Tell him to keep the shop a little more time. If you call personally he will not deny.”
A small sound from her throat. A giggle, short, caught, the same private one from the morning kitchen.
Then, after he must have said something:
“I have given the tiffin to Ammi downstairs. I made chicken again. A little differently. Dry one. Hope you will like it.”
The light turned. She ended the call.
Chicken again. Dry. For the same mouth that had told her to wear the wired thing until it left a mark.
I followed the map.
Four or five kilometres. On a Sunday morning it would have been fifteen minutes. On a Wednesday at this hour it became fourty. Buses, a digging stretch, a signal that stayed red as if it had forgotten the other colour. That is Mumbai. Distance is not kilometres. Distance is how many times the clutch hand gets tired.
We reached a little after nine-ten.
She pointed to a spot near a shuttered fabric shop. I parked. The market was not a mall. Ground floor mostly cloth shops still open, first floor the other things — tailors, jewellery, a couple of footwear shops, a shop that sold only blouse pieces and latkans. Dense. Lights still on.
We walked.
“Beta, you eat something if you want,” she said. “You must be hungry. I will take fifteen-twenty minutes and call you. Wait near the bike only. ok?”
She looked at her phone to check the time.
The glass was black.
She pressed the side. Pressed it longer. Chuckled once, tired and familiar.
“Huhh. This phone. Again. You wait at the bike after eating. I will finish and come here only.”
I had been ready to find a stall and eat alone. The stomach had been empty for long. Then the dead phone and the new market and the black piece in her bag sat together. Fifteen minutes in a place I did not know, with a phone that had already died twice today, felt like leaving a door unlatched.
“I’ll come with you,” I said. “It’s only fifteen minutes. On the way back we can stop. Pani puri, pav bhaji, whatever is open.”
Her face changed. The hurry loosened by one notch. A real smile, the old one, the one that used to come when I agreed to orange ice-candy after tuition.
“It’s been long,” she said. “Both of us eating from outside. Yes. We’ll do that.”
She adjusted the bag on her wrist.
We climbed the one flight to the first floor.
The tailor shop was at the end of the corridor, light still falling on the measuring table, a man in a vest looking at the clock and then at the door as if he had already decided to pull the shutter and then decided to wait because a call had come from a number that mattered.
Ma walked in first.
I followed her in.
3 December 2025 – Wednesday
The smell that came out with her was not balm and not the other smell from Monday.
New cloth.
Starch and shop and that faint chemical sweetness packets have when they have just been opened.
“Beta, good that you came,” she said. The mother-voice was back, but it was running. “I was about to call you only. We need to go to the market quickly. I need to give the blouse for stitching. The tailor will close by nine. We have to leave now. I am sorry, I am bothering you after office, but please. Azad ji is also not home, otherwise I would have asked him. I was trying Rapido. No one is accepting. You know the traffic.”
I stepped in.
Near the folding table there were bags.
Three.
One was from a saree house whose name I had only seen on those shiny boards near Linking Road, the kind of place where a single pallu costs more than our monthly ration. The bag was thick paper, gold lettering, already empty and sitting open.
One was from a cosmetics counter. Smaller. Black and white. Also empty.
One was from a footwear brand I knew only from mall windows. Heels. Sandals. The bag had that stiff shape shops use so the box inside does not look cheap. Empty too.
Nothing left inside any of them that I could see. Only the names. The cost sitting on the table without the things.
She was already wrapping the empty bags, the old habit, folding them into smaller rectangles to keep for later. Onion, cobwebs, a wet umbrella — she stored bags the way other people store boxes. The wrapping told me the contents had already been taken out. Almirah, probably. Shelf behind the hanging blouses. Or the top of the steel trunk. I did not open anything. I only stood with the office bag still on my shoulder and the three expensive names on the wood.
She would not have bought these on house contribution alone. The thought arrived complete. Azad Sahab. Gift. Or instruction. Black saree. Matching blouse piece. Wired bra from the cosmetics bag, maybe. Heels that would make the payal sound different on a floor that was not ours.
For what.
The six o’clock thing. Or something after. Or both.
“Ohhh, ok Ma. Give me two minutes, I will just wash my face.” I said.
“Quickly, beta. Really quickly.”
The bathroom was still holding a little of the morning steam and the shampoo smell. I washed, changed the shirt for the house one, left the formal pants on because we were going out again. When I came out she was already near the door with a regular cloth bag in her hand. Folded.
“Ma, why so much hurry,” I said. “Can’t this wait for tomorrow?”
She cut across it the way she cuts across a pot that is about to boil over.
“I will tell you later. Now just come. If there is traffic we will miss him.”
No space for the next question.
We went down.
She sat on the bike the old way, one-sided, feet to the left, one hand on my shoulder. Not the tight hold of a person who is afraid of the road. The practical hold of a person who has sat like this for years and still does it when the auto does not come. The light green blouse was close to my back. I felt the warmth of her through the shirt when the bike leaned at the first turning.
On the stairs she had already told me the location of the shop. Not her usual tailor near the station road, the one who had stitched her old blouses for ten years and still used the same chalk. This was another market. Further. The kind people name when they want the cloth to look like it belongs to a different income.
Helmet on. Engine. Lane.
Talking properly was not possible. Wind. Horns. The helmet’s own echo.
At a red light I heard her phone.
She had taken it out with the hand that was not on my shoulder.
“Yes,” she said. “Sunny came. I left with him.”
A pause. The light stayed red.
“You please call the tailor shop. Tell him to keep the shop a little more time. If you call personally he will not deny.”
A small sound from her throat. A giggle, short, caught, the same private one from the morning kitchen.
Then, after he must have said something:
“I have given the tiffin to Ammi downstairs. I made chicken again. A little differently. Dry one. Hope you will like it.”
The light turned. She ended the call.
Chicken again. Dry. For the same mouth that had told her to wear the wired thing until it left a mark.
I followed the map.
Four or five kilometres. On a Sunday morning it would have been fifteen minutes. On a Wednesday at this hour it became fourty. Buses, a digging stretch, a signal that stayed red as if it had forgotten the other colour. That is Mumbai. Distance is not kilometres. Distance is how many times the clutch hand gets tired.
We reached a little after nine-ten.
She pointed to a spot near a shuttered fabric shop. I parked. The market was not a mall. Ground floor mostly cloth shops still open, first floor the other things — tailors, jewellery, a couple of footwear shops, a shop that sold only blouse pieces and latkans. Dense. Lights still on.
We walked.
“Beta, you eat something if you want,” she said. “You must be hungry. I will take fifteen-twenty minutes and call you. Wait near the bike only. ok?”
She looked at her phone to check the time.
The glass was black.
She pressed the side. Pressed it longer. Chuckled once, tired and familiar.
“Huhh. This phone. Again. You wait at the bike after eating. I will finish and come here only.”
I had been ready to find a stall and eat alone. The stomach had been empty for long. Then the dead phone and the new market and the black piece in her bag sat together. Fifteen minutes in a place I did not know, with a phone that had already died twice today, felt like leaving a door unlatched.
“I’ll come with you,” I said. “It’s only fifteen minutes. On the way back we can stop. Pani puri, pav bhaji, whatever is open.”
Her face changed. The hurry loosened by one notch. A real smile, the old one, the one that used to come when I agreed to orange ice-candy after tuition.
“It’s been long,” she said. “Both of us eating from outside. Yes. We’ll do that.”
She adjusted the bag on her wrist.
We climbed the one flight to the first floor.
The tailor shop was at the end of the corridor, light still falling on the measuring table, a man in a vest looking at the clock and then at the door as if he had already decided to pull the shutter and then decided to wait because a call had come from a number that mattered.
Ma walked in first.
I followed her in.
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