Anna

Prologue

It is raining cats and dogs this September and I was foolish enough not just to trust the sunny morning for the farewell of monsoon but also to forget my umbrella behind, while deciding to cover the three miles and odd distance to my host's residence by foot, justifying it to be a fun adventure. My luggage had been shifted last weekend and I was carrying only my backpack. No sooner had I crossed my lane, it started to drizzle. And now I was soaked from head to toe, half-blind with the water on my glasses, my shoes making their own contributions to the anthem of croaking frogs and the splash of rainwater under my feet. Sighing with relief, I try to walk faster as I see the outline of my destination hiding behind an even bigger shadow. 

My kind host is a rich, old woman living alone in a large house on the same street where Anna's mansion stands; in fact, the properties are separated only by a couple of empty plots. Standing in my balcony, I would be able to see the windows of the mansion, my view hindered only by the branches of the gigantic gulmohar that drowns a side of the window in rich red with the thick cluster of its flowers. I think of all this as I stand outside and wait for her to open the door. Shivering from my drenched clothes and the cold breeze, I look down at my shoes resisting the urge to bang on the door. They are muddy and make me so conscious of the impression that they might create upon my host that it is her bunny slippers that see my face before she does. I straighten up and see that she has a look of utter surprise written across her face and her steel grey eyes. 'I am sorry...,' I begin in the softest murmur that I can bring out of my throat. She smiles and waves her hand, brushing the topic aside. "Well, I wouldn't have expected you to be able to change the weather to suit circumstances. Now remove your shoes outside and freshen up for tea, quick." 

After tea I returned upstairs to my room and threw the windows open. The rain had fairly subsided and a fragrance of fresh soil lingered in the air. Beyond the swarm of dragonflies immediately outside my window, the vestige of the sun glowed with the reticence of a ray of flickering oil lamps reflected on the face of a new bride sitting half-hidden behind an impenetrable veil of sad clouds. I catch sight of Anna's closed window and wonder how it would all have affected her. Would this shroud of clouds, the romance of the earthy fragrance, the dance of the dragonflies have stirred the strain of pain that she so often bled onto paper? Could her eyes have invaded the secrets of these pictures to welcome them to break open their darkest sorrows, their longest longings, into her open arms? If indeed she was capable of that magic, I resolved to unsettle that mystery. 

It is with this and many other thoughts hovering in me that the stillness of the cold night pulled my tired day into a slumber.