Page 5 of Made in Mumbai

Like a pair of mad mice, they ran across speeding cars, jumping back and forth to weave through whatever little space they got. At one point he was terrified a zooming rickshaw would run them down. It wasn’t even slowing as they ran across.

“Don’t stop, G!” M wove her arm through his and pulled him until they were across, the sea right in front of them. Gautam let go of her wind-cheater, unconcerned about the rain, and rushed to the ledge. His palms slapped on the rough stone surface as he stuck his face out and into the wind of the grey sea. It was…beautiful. Fast, cold, smelling of salt and… something sweet. Maybe Mumbai. He couldn’t describe this. Large grey waves, frothy white at the top, crashing one after the other on the stone wall underneath him. And no, he couldn’t see the other side of the sea. Gautam laughed.

“I’m funny, but I haven’t even started yet,” M slapped her palms right beside his, cocking her head until she was in his field of vision. Her ponytail flapped in the wind, hitting his face.

“I was laughing because I was thinking I could see the other side of the sea from here.”

“You can’tseeit,” she dismissed him cutely. “But you can reach it!”

“How?”

She shuffled her bag to the front and reached inside for a notebook. It looked like study notes, the pages she tore.

“What are you doing?!” He reached for them, scandalised.

“Chill, it’s bullshit stuff anyway. See,” she showed him. He frowned, reading down the page. In blue ink, written in thick paragraphs, were movie songs. And not one single song written fully —

Haan, hai koi toh wajah, jo jeene ka maza, yun do you wanna partner o partner do you wanna partner love me love me say na say na how you said it to me soni de nakhnre sone lagde main yahan tu wahan, zindagi hai kahan, neend churayi meri, kisne o sanam — tu ne jo na kaha main woh sunta…

“What is this?” He laughed, loving her game. She folded her wind-cheater and sat down on the ledge, taking the paper from him to start folding it. The tree canopy above sheltered them from the rain, so he too perched in front of her, her book and papers between them.

“My tuition timepass,” she kept folding, the ink already bleeding into her hands.

“What tuition?”

“Accounts. My parents think I am very good at commerce. Actually, they think I am good at anything that they want me to be good at.”

“Are you?”

She shrugged — “I can be. But now I don’t want to be.”

“Then what do you want to be?”

“A boat.” She held up the paper boat to him with a grin. “I mean,” she snorted, “I don’twantto be a boat, I made a boat.”

“For what?” He pinched it between his fingers. It was a good boat, the edges sharp and cleanly folded.

“To send to the end of the sea!”

“It’ll drown and crash,” he laughed, glancing at the wild waves.

“So what? Doesn’t mean we don’t try! And what fun is life if we don’t launch paper boats in a choppy sea?”

“True.” He agreed. And even though they knew these boats would drown at first contact, they tore through her ‘timepass’ tuition book until they had a dozen paper boats lined up.

“Ready?” She got to her feet, bending over the ledge.

“Oye, don’t fall!” He held her shoulder.

“Nothing will happen, come on.”

He too bent over the ledge, keeping his feet tightly pressed to the ground.

“One, two, three, go!”

They threw their first paper boats into the water. The wind took his farther than hers but it drowned on impact.

“Ha! I win!” She danced.

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