写真

On school holidays he would wake up before sunrise and in the quiet light he would open the green wooden gate and step out on to the pavement, the GT Road empty, the corner paan shop shuttered, the corporation faucet dripping water into the green open sewer, he would turn right into the red gravel street that led to the strand. The rickshaws at the stand by the one room cinema hall were still asleep, he would walk by the garden villa of Roysahib and peer through the cracks on the sweeping gate, the peacock was awake, announcing its presence with shrill notes, walking head high on the front porch. He would walk past the bakery, the single large window open, the red fire aglow under the arched awning over the oven, three men wrestling with the dough on the low table, smell of fresh crocodile bread, soft and slightly sour that he loved but his father hated, pervaded the air. He would walk past the Church of the Sacred Heart, high, painted a dull yellow, with trees that he had never seen elsewhere, past the avenue lined with large neem trees that led straight to the river.

He took the same walk this time. The house with the green door has been demolished to make way to a high-rise apartment. The peacock is long lost, the villa is overrun with weeds, shuttered, the corporation faucet still leaks, the cinema hall is still there, the rickshaws still asleep, the road is now paved over, the window on the bakery is still open. But they do not make crocodile bread any more.