AnS - Part III

Sayanee swam with the current.

When she was a baby, her parents had died in a car crash. Her aunt had raised her. She was grateful for that. And not much else.

Her father’s younger brother - her uncle, had also been in the car. He was found unrecognizable after the accident that had claimed three lives and left two more languishing in that special place that is reserved for the bereaved, for the rest of theirs.

She had heard that story many times, in bits and pieces, from different people. It all boiled down to the same thing every single time. She could see it in her head. Her father had been cruising at 120 kmph -- in the wrong lane -- on the highway -- after dark. He had seen the fifteen-tonner coming down at him five seconds too late. She could see it all too well.

Her aunt had never made her peace with it. Maybe it wasn’t her fault. It is difficult letting go of a life that you are shown a glimpse of, and which is then rudely snatched away due to another’s mistake.

Sayanee swam with the current.

A docile child, she was a late talker, a late walker. Content to just sit around and dimple, her aunt didn’t really have too much trouble with her. Fed on a diet of barbs and constant carping, she grew into this reserved adolescent, who didn’t have too may friends. She would have turned out to be painfully shy and debilitated, had not her aunt deigned to send her to an engineering college in Pune, around four hours from home. That had been the turning point in her life. Living in a hostel, she had discovered bonding and friendship, mischief and joie. The shadow that she had been had materialized into a real person. A person who felt needed and loved.

She hardly went back home. And when she got this job with an Indian IT company, she was thrilled. They were paying enough for her to be able to pay back loans which weighed heavy on her soul.

She liked work too. Her client was a top American bank, a retail and credit-card company and in no way insulated from the current crisis. The credit card market, although mature in the erstwhile land of plenty, was facing a period of slump with consumerism at an all-time low and defaults at a historical high, but the company thankfully had enough going for itself in the Latin American, African and Asian markets, where the business was still nascent and economies more robust. She had spent around six months of the past year in Europe; her memoirs had mentions of 40 odd cities where she had left her well-traveled footprint.

As she stepped off Churchgate station that day, she was in high spirits. It wasn’t everyday that she got a chance to come to this part of the city - with its sea, surf and legendary restaurants. She was fond of Mumbai; like a chameleon, it was so different now than what it had been, or what it has seemed to be during her growing-up years. This realization enervated her; she felt like she had moulded Mumbai to her taste. She felt content.