The other day, when I was forced to abandon the sweet kachoris I was having in the warm fuzzy world of my dreams, for a visit to the cold practical bathroom, when the first fingers of dawn were yet to spread their silver light across the dark velvet sky, I heard the distant crowing of a rooster. Rooster? My still sleepy ears perked up. I hadn't heard the squeak of a mouse in recent time, forget a whole rooster!
Strangely, the sound of a rooster crowing always brings back fond childhood memories.
I remember Board exams and getting up early to memorise awful chemistry stuff- who cared what vulcanisation was anyway- and the sound of the rooster crowing somewhere in the distance signalled the beginning of a well deserved ten minute nap before rushing off to take a bath before my sister. Our backdoor neighbours, I assume, had quite a jungle living with them- parrots, rabbits, white lovebirds, a cat, a mangy dog (who wasn't mangy as we discovered later but bore the marks of a severe cat- dog fight and was now best friends with the same cat) and a tall and handsome rooster. The same rooster who was as much a part of my growing up as Bon Jovi and Tom Cruise.
However since I'd moved to the large and cold suburbian town of Mumbai after marriage, I longed to hear the same sounds which shaped my adolescent years. Sadly, there were none- for in this huge bustling crowded place, who had the time or place, to pet a rooster?
That's when it struck me. Sitting in the bathroom, with the gleaming marble floor reflecting my dishevelled state- I realized this was it.
Mumbai was home now. And the rooster had followed me home.
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