(Sep 13, 6:08pm)

This piece was written in the evening, while in office, and saved in a e-notebook; copy-pasting now

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The clock strikes eight past six.. It's cloudy outside but darkness is yet to settle in.. Towards east, in my home in Patna, it must be darker..

The sun sets earlier in that part of the country... 

Four years back, Shahnaz Aunty was sitting in this orange armchair in our living room.. Mumma sat in the carpet beneath it, with the tea pot and other things in the tray..

Frail, but the smile in her face suggested she would recover fast.. I thought, the day long of dripping, as the doctor had advised, was yielding result...

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It was, I would know later, the last smile God bestowed to her in kindness.. perhaps to add more colors to an already lurid sky.. against a fast disappearing sun..

She served tea to Shahnaz Aunty, asking me then to offer the special chhena sweet we had ordered from Shubhraj.. I did..

They had a talk.. Slowly.. without much words, as she had not been advised to talk much..

Mumma told her I was dearest to her.. which she did after a long time.. perhaps first time ever since our relationship deteriorated following grandmom's death..

We had quarreled over her wastefulness and unsustainable charity in most of the last nine years..

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Shahnaz Aunty took leave of her after the Azan was called out at six and thirty.. She said she would come back to see her the next day, after she returned from college..

She did.. In fact she cancelled her classes, and rushed to the apartment.. She stood by us in our gravest hour of grief.. 

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