Short Story: One Bird Too Many

Asmita Kundu narrates a tender tale of life and dreams from the perspective of a child.

The child had dozed off on her grandfather’s easy-chair. It was around four in the afternoon and usually, she got ready to go play with Ivy and Nupur. But it was an afternoon when she was tired of arguing with her mother and grandparents about buying a plate from the chatpati-wallah. Nupur and Ivy had insisted for the last three days that a plate of chatpati was the best thing they had ever had. That a paper plate of boiled potatoes, fried black chickpeas, onion, coriander leaves, topped with tangy and spicy unknown sauces, was a mandatory indulgence for all five-year-olds.  When she repeated the same points the best she could to the adults at home, she was laughed at, called cute, and then told that her grandmother would make her the exact plate that evening. The dismissal was enough to make her fall asleep. Exhaustion helped sleep come easily. The child grasped the long wooden arm rests and adjusted herself against the scratchy cloth of the easy-chair and closed her eyes. The distant calls of a ferry-wallah selling bangles, bindis, tiny bottles of perfume, and other colorful and unrecognizable glass-objects, worked as the perfect white noise that lulled and comforted her.