Short Story: Back in Bombay

Aarav Pillai shares a poignant story about chanced encounters, the nature of mystery, and what happens when one follows it too closely.

There is a particular glamour to mystery. I am not talking about Agatha Christie’s whodunnits, or that new product from Coca-Cola I haven’t tasted yet. Mystery is something that runs much deeper. It is that overgrown pathway that no-one ever talks about, leading away from the high streets to a forgotten spot of natural beauty. It is the unfamiliar book title which rings no bell except for a chime in its lyrical phrasing. Mystery is that quiet, distant person who, merely through the subtlety of her movements or the delicacy of his words, hints of a special individual concealed within.    

I have always felt drawn to mysterious people; the kind who seem to contain more than they are willing to declare. There is a particular pleasure in sensing that someone has an interior life that does not arrive pre-summarised; that they might, if handled incorrectly, reveal nothing at all.

It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that I noticed him immediately. One early morning in Bombay, while running past half-open shutters and tea stalls, I saw him approaching from a distance; long-haired; self-contained; moving with a kind of quiet certainty that suggested he was not in a hurry to be somewhere.