Chapter 4: The Foreigner

Chapter 4: The Foreigner

Abhay’s P.O.V

I took another shot of the women sewing together a brilliant bed sheet with needles and threads and then checked the photos for clarity. This was going to be the most amazing project I’d ever done for the Lifestyle Magazine.

The brightness of the colors contrasted well with the whitewashed buildings and brought the women into sharp focus. My new Nikon FM2 had cost me a fortune but it was worth every dime I spent and the whole night’s wait in front of the shop.

And it was lightweight and easy to carry. I still had a few longer, high resolution lenses in the duffle bag that I’d left back at the hotel, but since I was just walking through the vibrant marketplace and taking close-up shots, it was easier to carry a lightweight camera.

It was about three o’ clock on a winter afternoon but the sun was beating down on all of us mercilessly, although I was the only one who seemed to be affected by it. I wiped away a bead of sweat from my brows with a handkerchief and cursed myself for wearing a leather jacket in the middle of the day.

I looked around at the stores and street-side vendors and decided that going into a dhaba (an eatery) was a better choice than standing in this heat and watching myself melt. And besides, I hadn’t had lunch yet so it would give me a much needed break.

But first things first, I walked over to the group of women sewing together to get a closer shot of their work, which…I needed to buy for my mother once my work here was done. There were about nine women, everyone sitting in a circular formation around the sheet they were sewing, and they seemed to be having a pleasant time doing their job.

They sat with their back to a small one storied house, all wearing colorful ghagra-choli’s along with red coral bangles to signify their marital status. All of them had their dupatta’s covering their head and half of their face so you couldn’t tell if they wore vermillion on their forehead or not, which in India was a sure shot way of telling if a woman was married.

 Gingerly, I asked them if it was alright for me to take their pictures or not, because most women in this part of the country were conservative as Hell and it would be rude to get their photos in a magazine without asking for permission first.

The women seemed willing to let me take pictures so I helped myself by hunkering down next to them and taking several close-up shots of their crafts. The workmanship was even beautiful from up close and I made a mental shopping list of things that I’ll need to take home to my parents and to my brother and his new wife.

The threads they used were a bit on the thicker side and required mean-looking, big needles and the colors they had chosen for the red sheet were all in varying shades of green and white. It provided a nice contrast and really brought out the designs. As a photographer, it was my duty to bring out the best camera angles and the group of women were not only co-operative, they enjoyed the mini-photoshoot just as much as I enjoyed filming it.

I was also able to find out that they ran a local boutique store just around the corner and sold several other things that they hand-crafted themselves. So I noted down their address and promised to return soon to buy some of their products before I returned to Bombay. Happy that I’d accomplished part of the job, I made my way down the street, on to my next mission.

Finding the nearest dhaba only a couple minutes away, I ducked down under the shade of the asbestos sheet covered ceiling and plopped down on one of the nearest tables I could find. I placed my camera on the table and poured some water into a steel glass from a pitcher and drowned it in one go. Feeling instantly refreshed, I picked up the plastic bound menu card and began scanning through it, looking for something non-spicy to have for lunch.

“Ready to order, Saabh?” A waiter came to ask me a couple minutes later, wearing a white kurta and a multicolored turban, as most men did in Gujarat.

“Haan.” I nodded and pointed out a few delicacies that looked the least bit spicy. After all, you can never go wrong with rice and daal, right? “And get me a big glass of chaach (buttermilk) to go with it.” I told the man in Hindi and broken Gujarati, but he understood and wrote down my order before telling me he’ll be right back with them.

The chaach arrived first, garnished with spices and presented in a glass so tall, I could’ve easily just drank the whole thing and skipped lunch; and then came the daal chawal. What I hadn’t expected though, was the amount of green chilies floating in the pulses.

Carefully I swirled my finger in the middle of the lump of hot rice on my plate and then poured the daal into the well that I’d created. I made sure not to pour all the daal and reserved some for later, depending on the spice level. Then I picked up a small portion with my fingers and placed it into my mouth.

The burst of fiery heat was instant and within a few seconds, I had drowned half the glass of chaach and was still panting from the heat. “Fuck! That’s going to be a painful time at the loo.” I rasped under my breath.

Sometimes I hated the fact that I had such a low tolerance for spices. I had a huge sweet tooth, but when it came to heat, even black pepper was too much for me sometimes. Which is why when I saw a foreigner enter the dhaba along with a Guajarati girl, I felt a sense of pride that at least I had a better spice tolerance than the white haired woman.

Wait, white haired?

My head whipped up to stare at the woman in awe. At first I’d thought that she might be an old woman given the color of her hair, but now that I was looking at her closely, she hardly looked younger than twenty five. And now that she was inside the shade of the restaurant, I could see a slight difference in her hair color that I couldn’t tell at first glance. It wasn’t white…it was a metallic white, almost silver.

As if feeling my gaze on her, her head whipped in my direction, her eyes piercing right through me to the depths of my soul. For a few seconds, the world stood still. All I saw were her icy blue eyes, the same color as the ocean on a bright sunny day. But even though the color was bright, I felt a chill run down my spine. I shuddered, but I couldn’t break eye contact.

She was beautiful…absolutely gorgeous. But there was an iciness around her that could freeze someone to death. It was like she was closed off, too reserved and unaffected to care about anyone else, and yet the way she took a step in front of the Gujarati girl, while taking a seat a couple tables in front of me, was almost protective.

She was also very tall, almost six feet, which meant she would be almost the same height as me. And I could almost feel how good it would be to have her tucked under my chin, to feel her soft skin under my fingers, to kiss those delicious pink lips…

Dear god! What was wrong with me! I’d never thought of something like this before…then why was I so intrigued by this one woman?

And just like she’d read my mind before, she must have done so this time as well, because her icy blue eyes sparked fire at me and the world began to move again.

And I was finally able to break eye contact with her.