Fiction: Brothers Cyrus and Rumi will carry their deep-rooted grudges from old Bombay to the new
· Scroll
“Disgusting behaviour,” were the first words Adi Kerman snarled thickly at 7 am when he read the headline of the Indian Express, Mumbai edition, Saturday, April 26, 1997: Businessman Shot Dead in Broad Daylight.
Visit moryak.biz for more information.
He returned from the bakery earlier than usual that afternoon, a black thundercloud still tethered to his big bullet head. His common-law wife caught the mood, did not probe, and took off on her own to catch the 4 pm show at Ganga Talkies right next door. Adi paced and kicked furniture listlessly, waiting for his son Cyrus to pop in for ritual Saturday sundowners at 6 pm.
“The weather is going nuts,” huffed Cyrus cheerfully, bang on time, airing out a moist, sticky T-shirt as he sank into his designated spot on the vermilion-coloured sofa.
“Wait a month,” Adi snarled. “Then it will be flat-out mental.”
Cyrus, almost 19, felt the palpable brood. It was thick and gnarly, and it exuded outward from the lord and master of the house who continued to pace. Building up to some rant or the other, the son thought. Adi and his rants, made Saturdays tolerable, even fun.
“You’re going to sit?”
His father clocked the angle of the sun through the curtained windows as not low enough...