Where Do We Go Now?
Ravi Yadhav and his family of four had no desire to leave the slum colony on the outskirts of Sarita Vihar in New Delhi. Only an open sewer overflowing with rubbish separated their cluster of mud houses and bullock cows from Sarita Vihar’s gleaming skyscrapers and brand-new apartment towers that stood like fists raised triumphantly towards the Gods. The smell of the slum—of urine, the stench from the open sewer, old grease, and burning cow dung sometimes so clogged his nostrils that the naked longing to feel again the fresh scent wafting from the golden fields of wheat in his village made his stomach clench.
I\’m a Fly on the Wall during Lockdown (Part IV) . . .
Day 83 of Covid-19 quarantine. The sun gleams on my glassy back, the small dark garnet of my eye in its silver socket twitches as I flit from house to house. Slowly swinging myself on a whisker, I balance my little body on the ledge of a window as I peer inside.
* * * * *
Meena rolls down the window of her Camry and breathes in the fresh sun-warmed summer air. She closes her eyes briefly and remembers how she’d once breathed in all the strange thrilling scents of this new country: lavender bubblebath, fresh-cut grass, a cloud of masculine cologne in an elevator.
Once I believed America was a great country, with liberty and justice for all. The wretched thought crawls into her brain like a fat worm after rain.
It is Monday morning, and Meena is driving to a medical appointment. She switches on the radio to distract herself from thoughts that stir in her like dead leaves.