Along the busy road, the scooter comes to a halt. I look around to get a feel of things. The area is crowded, as expected. I smell a hundred different things, from the boiling milk in the shop beside me to the beautiful yet faint of perfume which hangs in the air. The smell takes me to a perfume shop where thousands of little bottles lie filled with varying essence. Small and large, rounded and flat, vials of perfume occupy the dainty store. The shopkeeper looks at me, a smile on his face and hope in his eyes. My thought process is interrupted by the broker who has now arrived, standing beside me. "Chaliye na sahib. The house is just around the corner," he says as I start to walk. The perfume shopkeeper sighs, praying he might sell some of his ware today.
The house is something straight out of an old novel. Crammed between buildings almost of the same age as the house is. "Aaiye sahib", the broker exclaims as he opens the door and thrusts the keys in my hands, as if I've already decided to shift in. The wooden stairs creak as I make my way up to the first floor. Broken bangles lay strewn in the living room, the furniture all covered up. I remove the cover and smile to myself. The furniture matches not only the age of the house but also its décor. I run my hand over the cot made from the wood of the saagwaan tree, thinking about where it must have come from, its story and its journey. Inanimate things have a journey too. They are integral parts of experiences which people gain and thus, are as important as the experience itself.
I reach the balcony and gaze upon the neighbourhood. Everybody seems to be in a hurry all the time. People run amok, minding about their own business. An old song suddenly comes on the radio as the broker jumps in surprise, "Abhi bhi chal raha hai Sahib. No need for you to buy a new music system". The radio sits on a dusty table, away in the corner of the room, as if music had no place in the lives of the people who lived here. I open the drawer and take out a tin box. "Noor Rehman", I read the name on the box out loud as the broker chips in. "She was the last tenant here sahib. Poor girl lost her husband and her son in the train bombings last year. She moved away since, nobody knows where she went. I tried to ask her when she called me about leaving this house but she wouldn't tell me."
I open the box and find a photo. A man, tall but bald and his wife and son standing against the backdrop of the sea at Juhu Beach, the smiles radiating from their faces even diluting the evening glow of the sun. I put the photo aside as something clinks down on the floor from the box. A small but exquisitely carved perfume bottle. An empty space sits in the middle of the bottle, perhaps occupied by a gem or a precious stone earlier. I feel an engraving on the bottom as I turn the bottle over. It reads 'To Ammi', a gift from her son. I get up and tell the broker I'll be shifting here next week, handing him the advance.
The stairs creak as I make my way down and onto the road. I walk a few steps and ask," Can I get this vial refilled please? It doesn't deserve to be empty".
The perfume shopkeeper smiles.
