Again . . .

It's summer in Bombay. Sultry heat. Bombay excites me. But now I want to get away. And it depresses me that I just can't get away - there are unfinished tasks and unrealised dreams. I can't get away.

I was spending just another evening with my friend M, wiling away, ruminating and sharing the frustrations of the day. This is my routine now. During our usual rendezvous where M and I shift back and forth in time and space and bring alive the moments of the past and even the future, my thoughts strayed. My thoughts strayed without my permission and went and anchored on a goat. A beautiful goat that I owned once upon a time during a summer. A nameless goat which looked like a deer. It was a beautiful summer. Hot, but not sultry. And I was too young then to know about unfinished tasks and unrealised dreams.

M is always fascinated by the goat episode in my life. She makes me talk about it often, which I enjoy too. M and I inhabit different worlds, and I wonder if there is anything common between us. M has not even gone near a goat, let alone own one! But when I talk about my world which had goats, hens, nosy neighbours, irritant relatives, muddy paths, dusty busrides and all those mundane things which would make a perfect village life, she always listens and nods as if she really understands. She's in Bombay and she wants to get away too. She too has got unfinished tasks and unrealised dreams. I guess that's what binds us together.

My goat. M asked if it was male or female. It was a female goat. Did it really matter? She's always after such irrelevant details. Or maybe, it mattered to her.

My father had bought the goat for four hundred and fifty rupees. And this transaction made me the owner and the goat was bound to accept it. I loved the fact that I owned it. I took pride in taking care of it. It gave me a certain sense of the grown-up, adult world. . . where people take pride in owning others. I used to carry the goat around as if it was a great privilege for it. I still remember its eyes. Helpless. I am a goat, I want to run around, why don't you put me down. But I owned it. I had the right to carry it.

The goat loved my mom and I think my mom even knew what it wanted. But I never saw a relationship grow between them. Maybe, my mother was too old to think about owning a goat, and taking pride in it. Or maybe, she knew very well that being owned is after all not a privilege.

Everyone knew about my goat. It had black spots which made it look like a deer. It was not like the other goats; I could spot it even from a distance, when it was grazing with the other goats. The other nameless goats in a herd. My goat was never part of a herd. It was a part of me. I think I never allowed it to grow beyond me. I had even willingly given up the holiday at my grandma's to be with the goat, to take care of it, to feed it. I remember, it was my first ever responsible relationship, where I held the strings, I called the shots, I made the plans and I was the owner.

Two months and summer was over. I was supposed to give up my goat. The deal was over. I cried. I begged. We then sold it for four hundred rupees. The relationship that began with a transaction ended with one. With a loss of fifty rupees. I wept, I sulked . . . and then, I forgot. Now looking back, rushing back through those seasons that I had left behind, I remember it again . . . and I miss it. And it hurts me even more that it's not the goat that I miss more. . . I miss my own old self . . . I miss those summers . . . I miss my life.

And yet, and yet, I laughed with M when she remarked with her characteristic casual callousness that someone must have killed and eaten it long back. I laughed with M. But something within me bled. I suddenly wanted to hold my goat again. . . just one last time.

--Virtually Yours