Vishnu's mother looked up at him with her ocean-blue eyes. Eyes inherited from the lost tribes of Israel!, Professor Zacuto would say. He looked at the calico cat asleep near the water filter. Her fur, burnished orange, jet black, milk white, gleamed in the sunshine. Vishnu opened his mouth, then closed it again. His mother turned back to her cooking. It's okay, Vishnu, she said. I understand. The pressure cooker whistled. He kissed the top of his mother’s head and grabbed the keys to the scooter. The cat chased him to the door and wrapped herself around his leg, the way they do. Yes. I will bring you a stinky old fish, Osho. The cat looked up at Vishnu with golden eyes. Vishnu watched as she turned around, all four paws treading an imaginary tightrope, as she walked away.
As he wove the two-wheeler through the slow line of cars along Mahim Bay, the name slipped off his tongue: Salsette. As he waded in the filth and sludge, picking up pieces of plastic trash from among the mangroves at the mouth of the Mithi River, he said it out aloud: Salsette. He'd done this as a sort of penance the year after the Bombay Deluge, but now it was just a way to clear his head. Vishnu had not learned a lot at St. Paul's School, Mumbai, but he would always remember Dr. Zacuto's lessons. Tales of the cluster of swampy islands from which the city of Bombay, Prima in Indus, was extracted. Gouged out. Tales of the archipelago's strangled creeks and foamy shores, its leopards and tigers, ranging free, in its gorgeous, lush, malarial swamps.
© Tara Sahgal. From a work in progress. Watch our for falling debris!
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