DAWN

The air is thin and fresh. There is a chillness that cuts through the skin. It sneaks through the slits in the Maine jacket and rubs against the soft skin.
Far away a koel is all angst, and tries to out-hum another. An owl too hums before the seminal brightness of morning would blind it.
A few bronzed stars are feeble over the Western horizon. Who is listening to the old Hindi songs so early in the morning? Chugging of a pre-dawn train sinks all other sounds. Before the train passes by, a booming plane thunders away, low in its flight with lights under its wings glowing.
I can hear the footfalls of the woman who brings milk. The rattle of steel jugs and containers rises. She is a busy woman, and moves from one villa to the other like an ant—so much involved and labour-oriented. Following her is the newspaper man. Bony and with a thin beard, he has covered his head and most of his face with a black woolen balaclava. He flits across the alley like an elf dropping at each doorstep newspapers smelling hot of printer’s ink.
A muezzin call, urging believers to pray. A worship song from the nearby temple. Pious peals of bells from the church some distance away.
The sky is a thick black liquid.
A rooster crows—a frustrated clarion call. It goes on crowing in its effort to wake up the hens in the pen.
I sit at the edge of the balcony, next to the balustrade, with my legs up on the rails. I breathe in the dawn. I sit still. Alone, like I am always in life—both in the crowd and away.
It is true that you can be alone right in the middle of a crowd. You shut the door and breathe in a different stream of air. You live like strangers under one roof. You live your life like roommates.
A very thin thought about someone in no time becomes a heart-ache. A strong feeling of longing takes over. Loneliness strikes hard.
Longing for someone.
There is an empty chair next to me in the balcony. It has always been empty.
I have always sat here alone, hoping someday the chair will be occupied.
Before I notice, there is brightness in the Eastern horizon. The stars pale into insignificance. Lights come on in the adjacent villas. Pressure cookers begin to hiss. Sounds of toilet flushes puncture the air.
The security guard with a skull cap switches off the lights in the alley. Aroma of breakfast and of fresh bread spreads in the air. I get up and walk into the house. Through the window I can see two empty chairs at the edge of the balcony.
Or, do I see them occupied?