Prologue

When I woke up on Monday morning, It took me a moment to recall why I

was felling so miserable. Yesterday was an highly unusual Sunday. Not only for the fact, It was my birthday which only a single person remembered, but mostly because I'd my casual visit to a seafront turned into the most overwhelming night-out, I ever could have imagined.

I'd wasted the entire Sunday-afternoon, lying on bed, staring at the boring ceiling fan like a wounded grasshopper, cooking up a miraculous beginning for my book. Despite the story, I was struggling at an initial stage. Zillions of thoughts were in orbit around my woozy head. Finally, when all futile ideas were flushed into gutter, I tuned in to a random radio station. Shattered with failure, I was on a verge to sleep. At 4 pm precisely, Lightning flashed followed by a gigantic boom of cloudburst; Sky rained down in torrents. I sat up, jerked awake. No further in time, I heard a local radio station alerting about an expected high tide. Swallowed into my own imagination, I was too feeble to leave the room, though needed to wake up to reality.

Once and for all, I heaved out of my beloved bed and set-off for the most favoured tourist destination of 'Amchi mumbai', Marine Drive. The C-shaped, six-lane boulevard in southern mumbai, situated along the coastline of Arabian sea. In view after sundown, with the street-lamps on, It appears like a fiery curve trimmed with the indigo glitter of salt-water. Visiting mumbai, without an evening at marine drive, alias 'QUEEN'S NECKLACE', is like having pizza without cheese.

Being honest, I am not too fond of rain, never was. Whereas, Thirsty for a light adventure, I wanted it to spill continuously. Rain, nevertheless, dried up as I stepped out of my apartment. The sky still appeared unable to make up its mind whether it wanted to rain or not. I had five kilometres covered by my feet to get me to Marine drive. Facing the blue queen, I stood swaying on the promenade and cross checked the Weather report. It had stopped raining a hour ago. Vault of heaven was almost free of dark clouds. To make the matter worse, sun glared out from clear blue sky and sea gleamed in sunlight. 'Where is high tide? I wondered aloud.

Heartbroken I sat idle in a comparatively remote area of the deck of the seawall, breaking a despicable F word on the radio jockey. The sea was furiously encroaching all around the coast and with each strong wave pounding on the tetrapods, I was mounting a level on the graph of boredom. I twitched cellphone out from my pocket as I remembered about my book and opened the NOTES section hoping for an inspirational start for my book. Pondering on my story again, I gawked the curser over 40 minutes, which did nothing except blinked on and on. Densely Annoyed, I wanted to pull that virtual curser out from the three inch mobile-screen and crush it like a buzzing mosquito. My degradation continued until, all of a sudden, a voice knocked me by surprise -

"Teeth of a crab are in its stomach!" "Weird, isn't it?"

Shocked for a split second, I looked down the deck. It seemed like some average height guy in early twenties, standing over the interlocked-web of tetrapod blocks settled against the seawall, below the deck. He was wearing old fashioned round glasses on his awfully skinny face. Moreover, his excessively large shirt draping off his toneless shoulders and shaggy-haired head were adding to his geeky look. Maybe his appearance wasn't creepy enough as he was holding a live crab with his bare hand. My neck whirled here and there, confirming he was talking to me only.

"In stomach, really?" I replied somewhat reluctantly. "They can still bite you. It can be painful."

"They won't. I hold 50 of them today. Then I just let them go." he said as the fellow crab slipped off his grip, bounced off the tetrapod-block and dived headlong into the sea-water. "You are welcome to try."

"Er- No thank you. Happy watching." I said in an offhand sort of way and got engaged in the stare-hate relationship with my homely curser.

Within in a minute or so, he climbed up the tetrapods like a zooming squirrel and plonked down besides me (invading my privacy), his legs dangling from the edge of the seawall. We sat side by side in silence for a moment, while I preserved the illusion of my busyness.

"Perhaps I'm the last one left on earth without a cellphone." he said informally.

I nodded slowly in agreement, head swung in his direction. "Except your friendly crabs."

"Marvels of technology, ain't they? Cellphones?" he said, leering at the grasp of my fingers.

"Indeed." I said, stroking random letters on the virtual-keyboard and saw, to my relief, that I had hit the first word of my book- 'WHEN'.

"I always wanted one." he said, staring at me, and there was a puzzled, almost concerned look in his eyes. "I see you're conservative in your ways."

"I beg your pardon," I said, pretending politeness."why would you say so?"

He sneered, then said, "Man, you're sitting alone, digging your phone like Victoria's treasure is buried in it. What else you expect me to think?" "Look around a little bit!"

"I'm busy thinking." I responded with a gruff.

"About?" he asked and I ignored him completely, shifting a trifle on my left, away from him. "Thinking about what?" he reiterated, a bit louder this time.

My temper rose to the surface.

"Hey! Why is it so hard for you to not be curious, huh? It's my phone, I'll do whatever I want to,". "mind your own business!" I said with sheer irritation and though I did not meant to say it that way it came out a bit too harsh.

He shook his head, taken aback.

"I apologise for my nosy behaviour! I thought you're ... you're sad or something- just wanted to help." he said and sat quiet, sadly looking down at his feet. I immediately regretted my words; I had to concede that I'd overreacted.

"Sorry if I was brusque." I quavered after twenty uneasy seconds. "I'm not usually like this. It's just that today I'm..."

I left my sentence hanging and gave a short sigh.

"Frustrated?" he said sympathetically. "C'mon now ... spit it out! Tell me what's bothering you?"

"My book." I drawled. "I am writing one myself, yet don't know where to start."

A look of great excitement suddenly dawned on him.

"You are a writer?" he said chock-fully exited.

"Sort of." I said, exasperated by his manic enthusiasm.

"You see," he said over the narrow line of his mouth. "Writing a book is 'The voyage of self-discovery'. At the very end you'll get to know who you really are."

"Bravo!" I said thinly, still wanting to be left alone.

"What's it about- I mean, what's its genre?" he asked moreover.

"It's fiction ... set in distant future".

"Science fiction, right? Like Star Wars ... Interesting." he theorised brightly, allowing a hint of flattery to enter his voice and remained still, silent in a short, mute version of our conversation.

Then, quite abruptly, he lifted his shoulders in a dismissive shrug, wriggled his bare, brown toes. "You are wasting your time on Science-fiction. Write something else." he said as though ordered, with an abrupt impulsion, provoking me into loosing my patience.

Chapter 1 »