he was standing there in the corner. suspicious. wondering why i was peeping into his private space. his 2 ft by 2 ft home. in the morning time, while he say brushing his teeth in the corner. i had looked in from the window in the wall. in an otherwise quite space, in the middle of an orchard of trees, no one came sauntering in. his neighbours were the cows, they seemed mo(o)ved by my presence, and voiced it in loud voice, and a great many shuffles of their feet. he just looked. black face. dead stare. i wonder what he was thinking?

there i was. with my big device clutched in my hand. my city bred jeans, tee-shirt. short hair on a woman. no jewelry. he looked on. who is this? why is she here? what does she want? maybe not used to being understood by city dwellers from mumbai who mostly don’t speak marathi, he didn’t speak. then i spoke, in his language, in a city-bred voice with a non-mother tongue accent to my broken marathi.

but he understood. he smiled. and i clicked.