The Mynah.

The sun exerted an unbearable pressure from above. I felt the heat on my head as if some sumo wrestler had been paid to dig me down into the floor. A fine sumo wrestler would have done it with one hand. My throat lusted for a single drop of water! An October afternoon in Mumbai, at an overcrowded Dadar station, is no trivial battle to win! Thousands of soilders marched in hurried synchronization with the trains that made guest appearances on the platforms. I stood amongst a multitude of humans pretending, with all their energy, to be wild carnivorous animals fighting over the last, lame piece of flesh before them. "Thank God I am not a train" I thought to myself! Fatigue. I was exhausted. I frequently held my hand on my stomach to soothe my aching liver like a worried but helpless mother patting a cranky child. Even admidst all the crazy activity around me I managed to view the ground around me. I stood in a pool of the dried brown spit of paan. Had I been in another world & a different situation I would surely shriek and move away. However, all I did was look up again. I survived. I won over yet another October afternoon in Mumbai. The sweet gray of evening surrounded me. The mynah coo cooed.