Hina felt huzn (sadness) for the first time. She was crying in her dream. Sleep had overtaken her mind. Her soul was coming back to her body from the dark tunnel. She was putting pressure on her mind so that her sleep would break and she would be able to see the world around her.

When she opened her eyes to the dim lights, there were tears at the edges of her lashes.

She switched on the tube light and looked at her body in that light. She kept looking at herself for a long time. She touched herself and tried remembering the dream she had just seen, but in vain. The dream had drifted into oblivion. She could only recollect a few things. But she remembered that there was a brief moment of intercourse in that dream whose intensity and heat could still be felt in her body. She touched the delicate parts of her body and felt the juices in which was laden the passion called love.

Next day in college, she filled Vidhi up with all the details of her meeting with Asrar, and also about the dream that she had seen but did not remember any more. She said, she remembered the taste of lovemaking that she had indulged in during that dream. Vidhi understood her condition and encouraged her by making her understand that the body had its own needs which it expressed in various forms. They bunked college that day and sat at Chowpatty, discussing this topic and other similar ones.

8

I Do Not Want the Winds Over My Head to Be My Guide

(Na Sar Pe Rah Dikhati Hui Hawa Chahun)

The sea that had its arms around Mumbai was ferocious. It desired to win the centuries-old battle, gulp the island and be victorious, finally. Tall waves rose and fell, rose again and banged their heads against the shore. It had been raining for the past three days, so much so that the dark alleys, narrow lanes, the wide roads and the crumbling streets of the city were all submerged in knee-deep water. Black clouds veiled the sky. The city no longer remembered how the rays of the sun felt and looked. The sky was leaking through huge holes in its being, as if the sky had transformed into a never-ending waterfall. The water of the sea had found a comfortable entry into the drains running below the ground. The drains were a battleground for the unstoppable rainwater and the roaring sea, in a continuous struggle to make space for themselves. This war had caused great damage to the concrete sides of the newly constructed drains. The streams of water merged together and made way into the deepest layers of the soil.