The Daytime Forgetfulness of Tidia Tarab

After taking a sip from a stained cup of fragrant tea, when Old Mrs. Kaur looked at her through her thick, almost opaque large framed glasses and asked her “and who are you little one?” she had introduced herself.

“Dia.”

The room smelled of ginger and cinnamon. Probably from the tea.

“How old are you my child?” she had asked, keeping the cup aside on the table.

“Nine.”

Old Mrs. Kaur stood up from her chair and tottered towards the paint-peeled wooden window.

“And for how long have you been nine?”

No one had ever asked Dia how long she had been nine. She did not know how to answer that.

She looked out of the window. The pale yellow moon was hanging low over the Karol Bagh flyover. The brake lights were a steady red stream on the asphalt below. Old Mrs. Kaur was leaning against one of the wooden window panes, looking at her. Dia looked back at Old Mrs. Kaur and said “I have never heard this question before. I don’t know how to answer this.”

“Ah! You are forgetful, little one” Old Mrs. Kaur had said, her many wrinkled face smiling a toothless smile.

She reached out of the window, extended her wrinkled-with-age right hand and plucked the yellow moon from the sky above the Karol Bagh flyover. She picked Dia up, seated her on top of the moon, and placed it back on the sky.

Tottering back to her chair, Old Mrs. Kaur picked up the stained tea cup and took a long sip of that tea.

“Enough nine years for a day. Spin those yarns now, Tidia Tarab.”