It was my last weekend at home before I went back to college. So, when my father asked me if I wanted to go to Marine Drive, I said yes, despite everything. I put on the best polo T-shirt I owned; Rishav put on his clean shoes; Ma tied her hair into a bun and Dad slung the car keys from a notch in his jeans.
We congregated in the compact Swift just as the clouds above us began to churn and rumble. As Dad reversed us out of the parking spot and put the Swift into first gear, all around us the sky, the buildings, the cars and the people dissolved into a watercolour blue and slowly the patter of raindrops began hitting the windshield. Dad lit a cigarette and began smoking it, his elbow jutting out of the open window.
Five minutes into the journey, we were out of Thakur Village. As he attempted to shift down to second gear, due to a commotion in Samta Nagar, the clutch grumbled and let out a piercing cry and Ma screamed over the sound of the rain, "You understand that we don't have any more money to shell out on this goddamn car, right? How difficult is it to drive? You've been doing it for thirty fucking years." With the viciousness of rubber against rubble, my father brought the car to a violent halt on the side of the road, nearly hitting a vada-pav wallah.
"Why did you stop?"