“Like this, see?” She set one foot in front of the other.
“Like that, huh?” He deadpanned, moving his feet sideways. It made her chuckle, and when she looked at him, he was smiling. Ritu turned and began to walk towards the water, the strip of the setting sun lying orange on the bed of the sea in front of them. A path inviting them into the far distance, where nothing but the horizon awaited. The low tide had pushed the water back, leaving shells and enamels embedded in the soft, wet sand.
“Can you feel it?” She asked.
“What?” His bored voice came from behind her.
“The tingling?”
“I can feel dirty wetness.”
“Are you a Mumbaikar?”
“Almost.”
“Explain ‘almost?’”
“Something that is short of fully.”
Ritu glared at him over her shoulder.
He huffed — “I came to the city for the first time when I was four. Kept coming regularly. But settled here only after I turned sixteen.”
“And in all this time, you never walked barefoot on sand? Played in it?”
“Did you?”
Ritu searched his face to check if he was being sarcastic. He wasn’t. He was following her footsteps and looking at her curiously. That made her tongue loosen up.
“A lot,” she reminisced, turning back towards the sea. “On Chowpatty Beach. Maya and me, whenever Maya came to live with us. With friends, it was never the beach, always the building compound. But when Maya came, it was a week-long party. She never lived without turning every day into a party. Plans in the morning, plans in the evening, plans at night, plans at midnight — even if it meant raiding the fridge and eating leftover dhokla. Every evening 4-7 was Chowpatty. Making sand castles, sand cakes, burying each other and making mermaids, wrestling…”
“Wrestling?” His amused bark sounded as he came to walk by her side.
“We look delicate, but are not.” Ritu joked, but his answering smile was not as deprecating as hers. She glanced sideways. Why was he staring at her like he wanted to stare more? She looked away, pointing at the flock of black birds flying across the orange sun in a V.
“Have you painted a water-colour painting like that?”
“Yeah, who hasn’t?”
“You must have been good at painting and arts.”
“Very.”
Ritu gave him a look.
“I was also good at being humble,” he added.
“Past tense,” she pointed.
“Past tense,” he smirked.
They reached the edge of the sea, and she stopped him.
“What? Why are we stopping? No dipping your feet in the water? Or that’s not part of the therapy?”
“No! You wait for the sea to come to you! Stand here. Wait. The waves will touch you when they are supposed to. Not a moment before it.”
“And what would happen if I walked five more steps and touched them on my own?” He banded his hands behind his back, shoes dangling from his fingers.
