Milk Teeth

by Amrita Mahale

doily,

quicksilver

lurid

deftly weaving questions and small talk into conversation that gave away little about him.

Board exams were the Indian epidemic that afflicted entire families at once. Cable connections were disconnected, social lives were paralysed, and all big decisions were

indignant

deepened the assault on the senses.

dredging

This was a common sight in the local train: junior college student flirting with Ayn Rand.

It was easy to believe that a mother’s love was unconditional, which made it alright to challenge her, correct her, laugh at her. Fathers were more complicated. Their love, once earned, had to be sustained. It had to be sheltered from the glare of

fallible.

god-fearing, mother-revering, hair-oiling, hormone-defying beacons of decency who brushed their teeth twice a day, who forgave and forgot, who said thank you but found more opportunities to say you are welcome, and when they read the paper they started from the front. But they were also often the biggest rascals, which explained why they were her friends.

A LIGHT SLEEPER AT BEST, Mumbai opened its eyes by 5 a.m. to the trundling arrival of milk trucks on the streets. Local trains started to ply around the same time, carrying fisherwomen, flower sellers, and sleepy revellers up and down the arteries of the metropolis. And along these arteries, Mumbai awoke in slow waves, the farthest suburbs stirring first, readying themselves for the long battle that was the day ahead.

the age-old womanly remedy known to bury domestic fracas—silence.

salvo

History is not just names, dates and events, you know? That’s just the skeleton. Stories are the flesh and blood, the link between past and present.

suffused

Saracenic.

‘That’s modern architecture for you, no imagination, no soul.’

‘The Irani cafe was one of Bombay’s first cosmopolitan spaces. Everybody was welcome: prostitutes and poets, mazdoors and communists, all classes and castes could mingle in this democratic eatery. Who else would have taken them in? This mix of people, all in one place, this was Bombay. And this beautiful chaos,’

cartographers,

The Hunchback of Notre

So for most practical purposes, the communal violence that started after the Babri Masjid fell came to an end after the blasts, but the spell of peace that followed felt like hate was only shedding its milk teeth.

mercurial.

‘Beauty is nothing but the promise of happiness,’ she once heard him say, ‘but in this city, only misery is guaranteed. Nobody can promise happiness here, just different shades of misery.’

swig.

incandescent.

like a saw it cuts when it goes, and it cuts again when it returns. She did not remember what the it was. Had to be love, she told herself, it had to be love.

subterranean

alcove.

When you looked at yourself, you saw a tangle of fiction and feeling. You only began to make sense under the lingering gaze of another.

tumescent

anathema

lilt

terrazzo