The thought of the ocean reminded him of how a day before he was sitting on the seashore. The music of the waves had slowly entered his soul and merged with it. For a few seconds he could no longer see Mumbai because his eyes had beautiful images of water in front of them. He saw the disturbed sea. The sea, that was hitting its head on the shores, as if in anger. And in an instant, it fell silent. But the silence had much more to it. It was a mysterious silence with a hidden conspiracy. He saw that on the surface of the silent waters, the Queen of the Sea was floating slowly. His father was engrossed in a conversation with his friends. Suddenly, the silent waters roared, and one could see water till the end of the horizon. A whirlpool opened its mouth right under the boat. The boat whirled and took seven spins before the water swallowed it.

Only Abid Parkar did not drown.

The first of May was a holiday. It was Maharashtra Day.

The inhabitants of the Jamat Ki Kholi were lost in deep sleep. At fajr, the muezzin coughed thrice into the mike and began reciting the azan and Asrar woke up. It was the muezzin’s regular habit to check the mic by coughing to ensure that his voice was audible and clear.

It so happened that in the madrasa where he had studied, every Thursday evening, his teacher, Maulvi Abdul Haq Bijnori, would take him to a secluded place to feed him strawberry ice cream and would say, ‘La yajub, la hujub (It won’t melt, it won’t melt).’

As an after-effect of that hardened ice cream, his throat was always in a bad condition the next day and his voice was terrible too. He had stopped eating ice cream but the permanent sore throat had made his life difficult and saddened his soul. Hence, it was a routine to check his voice and throat every morning before azan.

Asrar was amazed that as soon as the sound of the azan from the nearby mosque rose, he could also hear some clear and some not-so-clear azan merging into each other from near and far and falling on his ears. Some voices were shrill, some strong, some from the throat and some were nasal. This collage of voices continued for a long time. One voice overpowered another and the one from far away felt close. The mic system of one muezzin got stuck at the ‘meem’ of ‘Assalaat khairum minun naum’, and continued buzzing with coarseness.