SFX – Car screeching to a halt.

SEKHAR: Oh, what an ass he is? If he came under, I would’ve been hauled up for manslaughter not amounting to murder? Oh the goddamn legal jargon.

PRATAP: Is the Indian road sense any less nonsensical? We’ve hardly clocked a kilometer and I’m already crazy really.

SEKHAR: The chaos on the roads was no less yesterday.

PRATAP: Wasn’t my mind more chaotic yesterday?

SEKHAR: Yes and no.

VIMALA: Pratap, he won’t leave you till you commit yourself

PRATAP: Okay then, bank deposits “yes”, emotional withdrawals “no” and future course “don’t know”.

SEKHAR: It’s the way life these days. What do you say Vimala?

VIMALA: Ladies come last …

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PRATAP: With their last word.

VIMALA: Glad you haven’t lost your wit a wee-bit.

PRATAP: And you, your ability to appreciate.

SEKHAR: Why make me feel left out?

VIMALA: Are you not in the driver’s seat.

SFX –A lorry whizzes past.

PRATAP: Is he drunk or what?

SEKHAR: Drink or no drink they drive insane.

PRATAP: I’ve come here to mend my life, not to break my bones.

VIMALA: Don’t worry; if it comes to that I’ll tend your bones.

PRATAP: Won’t I mend my life as you tend them?

VIMALA: How am I to know?

SEKHAR: You may know you’re in safe hands.

PRATAP: But still, we’ve a long way to go, to and fro.

SEKHAR: Why worry, you’ll get used to our traffic ways by then.

PRATAP: Only to lose my way on the U.S. roads.

VIMALA: But you said you would come back for good.

PRATAP: That is, if I don’t go back out of heart.

SEKHAR: Vimala, have you ever heard of an Indian American discarding his suffix.

PRATAP: Why do you prejudge to prejudice her mind?

VIMALA: I’ve a mind of my own and you know that.

PRATAP: But out of sight is out of mind.

VIMALA: Not with the nursery to degree kind of …well, I don’t suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, at least for now.

PRATAP: I tell you those days make the almanac of my life.

VIMALA: Well tucked in the attic to gather dust.

PRATAP: I can’t fault you for faulting me.

VIMALA: That Houdini like vanishing act and the prodigal son like hibernation. What to make out of that?

PRATAP: Silence of the lamb.

(PAUSE)

PRATAP: Let bygones be bygones, won’t you let me dust my almanac.

VIMALA: You may need a broom for that. Wait till I fetch it.




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