“Hmpfff… OK… bring it in.” Prashant said and opened the folding doors completely. Nasir and kajal walked in. It was, as she said, a small shack. There was a small mattress in the corner where Prashant slept. The rest of the shack was filled with two-wheelers, their parts and other tools. The whole place also reeked of something kajal couldn’t quite place… probably just grease and petrol. In another corner was a chair with a table, and on top of the table, a telephone.
“Can I use the phone?” she asked.
“Yes sure.” Prashant said as he started opening the scooty casing.
she picked up the receiver and held it to my ear. Silence. No dial tone. “There is no dial tone” she said.
Prashatnt came over and took the phone from kajal. As he did, she could not help but notice his still shirt-less torso. It was hairy, and he had a pot belly. There were some stains of grease on his belly and arms.
“kajal guess the storm knocked the lines out.”
“Oh. Is there someone close by with a cellphone?”kajal asked.
“There’s just our garage and two other shops here – one a tea stall and another for hardware. Both are closed, and the guys who run them don’t stay in the shops like me. You will have to walk a couple of km that way for any other shops or houses.”
kajal weighed her options. It was still raining pretty hard. she could walk to the other shops. But may be she could just wait for these men to fix my scooty and then drive. Nasir was already working pretty hard at it. Prashant went and stood next to him and they started discussing whatever was to be done. That’s when kajal sneezes started. Achoo’s after achoo’s. About a dozen or so.
“Looks like you are catching a cold because of your wet clothes.” Prashant said looking at kajal . “If you want, I can give you a clean shirt and a lungi to change into.”
“No, that’s fine. I can wait. It won’t take long to fix this anyway, right?”
“It will take about an hour, and…”
He was interrupted by another bout of sneezing from me. After my sneezes subsided, he looked pointedly at me. I could feel the sneezes getting worse. she decided that it would be stupid to risk getting pneumonia when there was an option to change out of my wet clothes.
“OK I suppose I should change.”kajal said
Nasir went to the corner and opened a box. He took out a towel, a relatively clean t-shirt, and a lungi. A lungi, for those who don’t know, is a sarong-like wrap that many Indian men wear. He gave it all to me and said, “As you can see, there is no other room. You can change in here. Nasir and I will wait outside.”
They walked out and she went to close the door. It was just a rusty bolt which shhe slid into the loop. There was a nail hanging from a thread near the bolt. The purpose of the nail, as she later realized, was to be inserted into a hole at the end of the bolt, to act like some sort of a lock. she didn’t realize it then and left the nail hanging as it was, instead of inserting it into the hole. Which, ironically, lead to further events.
