Arnav gazed out of the window. The seated men observed him.

There had been a deluge in the city a few hours back. The puddles of water still lay upon the roads, reflecting the sunlight.

The cars upon the street drabbled the walkers who walked beside the puddles. Their tires moved through them swiftly, relentlessly, oblivious of the walkers. Or perhaps, were they vigilant.

Arnav saw it all. However, his mind sojourned somewhere else.

His mind sojourned in a city of lights, however, not in the illuminated illusions. His mind sojourned in a city of sounds, however, it lived the silence of it. His mind lost itself in darkness.

Claustrophobia had spread its claws, clenching the muscle of his heart. His heart bled, cried aloud, however, his ears were deafened. They could not hear its cries. They could not perceive the pain. Or perhaps, they did, and it was a fault of the tongue.

The tongue could not word out its perceptions-it could not word out the taste of dismay and dread. His senses lay stupefied-they perhaps, remained vigilantly oblivious- vigilant of dismay, oblivious of themselves-well-aware of the existence of agony, they inadvertently strove to disregard their own existence.

The pain had numbed his senses and sanity-they had numbed his existence!

Arnav looked at the windowsill. A little sparrow had settled himself there. If earlier had it been, he would have moved away his orbs in sheer terror. He would have reminisced the rhyme:
One for sad,
Two for joy,
Three for a letter,
Four for a toy.

But he did not. He contemplated the little being. He contemplated his drabbled body, his nibble movements.

Arnav instantaneously poised his thoughts. He became aware of them. He was vigilant that he himself was drabbled, muddy. However, his meekly silence sojourned with his mind. It remained unbroken. It did not abandon him. With pity, it stayed, sympathizing Arnav.

Arnav, reluctantly, moved away his eyes from the lonesome creature. His ebony orbs met with the emerald green ones of Sameer.

Arnav began his tale:
"My name is Arnav Lohar. I lived, once, in the slum of the city. It was huge, huger than the mansions surrounding. It was vaster than the colonies the well-built houses occupied.

"Our slum was close, very close to a ghetto. The odour emanating from it, often reached us, in times of play, in times of sleep, or in times of feeding.

"We were quite accustomed to it. It was an age old friend to us, a friend promising to never forsake us. We were as accustomed to it as we were to the odour of poverty.

"I was born into a family of Dalits. I was the youngest son. I had two brothers, both elder to me, and one sister, younger to me. I know not what God has done to them. We played near the ghetto, cooked, ate." Arnav stopped for a while.

He gasped for breath. His scalp bore strands of silver amidst the ebony barnet. He was cadaverous, his countenance a pale brown. His cheekbones had created dents on either side of his face, thereby, causing him to appear older than he actually was.

Arnav inhaled. He exhaled. His regular, monotonous exhaustion overlapped his being. He took the copper vessel from the table top which resided beside him. His hands quivered for the quarter of a second. A few drops of water slipped down upon the carpet.

The crimson shade of the carpet which earlier was being rejuvenated by the sun, now was wetted.

Arnav looked at the dampness, inhaled its odour. His lungs consumed it to form gloom which evaporated. It reached his eyes and condensed back into water. He was crying.

Sameer lended his hand to him. Arnav held it like a sailor sinking in the sea. He held it like a log of wood which the heavens had lended him. A log of wood to maintain his stance amidst an ocean of ambiguity and uncertainty.

Sameer felt Arnav's quivering, cold hands within his. He clenched it, endeavoured to transmit the strength from his arms to Arnav's.

Sameer, perhaps, did. Arnav borrowed consolation from the grasp and continued:

"Some say, 'when poverty reaches the door, love runs through the window'.
I perceived love once. And it left me broken. It left me collapsed."

Sameer, now, lended him an inquisitive look. Arnav, having read it, continued.

"My mother left me as a teenager. Her love and longing I bore within. They punctured my heart, but consoled me too. And I, like a fool, committed a folly. I searched for her love within the city. I kept searching, kept searching, kept searching. In the foliage, in the ghetto. I searched everywhere. Nothingness I found.

"Perhaps, nothingness I sought.

"But something approached me and my path of nothingness with the dawn of a morn. A mundane morn gave me something.

"It was something which obscured, which hindered the simple path of nothingness. It hindered my path without complications, the path without expectations and acceptances.

"It was Ishita."

****