

Biju stood there in that dusty tepid soft sari night. Rotis flew through the air as in a juggling act, polka-dotting the sky high over a restaurant that bore the slogan "Good food makes good mood". A mosque and minarets lit magic green in the night with a group of women rushing by in burkas, bangles clinking under the black and a big psychedelic mess of colour from a sweet shop. A conference of old men with elegant goat faces, smoking bidis. He saw a pair of elegant bearded goats in a rickshaw, riding to slaughter. Thousands of people were out though it was almost eleven.

His feet sank into dust winnowed to softness at his feet, ad he felt an unbearable feeling, sad and tender, old and sweet like the memory of falling asleep, a baby on his mother's lap. “Biju stepped out of the airport into the Calcutta night, warm, mammalian.
