Damayanti lives a quiet life. Unlike women her age. She would be happy tidying up a messy cupboard, drinking peppermint tea, reading Wuthering Heights (yet again), and fluffying cushions after work on a rainy evening, than putting on a dress and hitting the happening pub in town. Since I know her personally, I can guarantee that it is less depressing than it sounds. And this isn't London, for crying out loud. It's a very antiseptic little place, perched almost hilariously on a hill.
Life for Damayanti, is about retrospection. Spending more of her waking hours indoors, stocking up on her Guatemalan coffee, devouring rich tea biscuits like nobody's business, putting up her Christmas-socked cracked heels against the radiator, and beavering on.
In between all that beavering, she looks up momentarily, staring at the seascape. But there is a whole lot of paperwork left. Very mundane, even by Damayanti's standards. A few profiles to set up. A few futile meetings to survive. When it is late afternoon (and it's still raining, of course), she potters around the one-bed cottage, switching on the Christmas lights, drawing the curtains, and putting the heating up by a notch. Her softphone buzzes. A burst of colour on her Mac screen. It's a co-worker. And then the emails. More prosaicalness.
It is still important though, to keep the Desert Eagle ready, to keep an eye on the cliff, to wait patiently for the zombie apocalypse.
But another day passes, and it is dinner time. Dinner is a simple chicken salad with a Bruce Willis movie.
At night, she dreams of the pastel door yet again, surrounded by peonies. Huge blue hydrangeas by the door, and a few doves fluttering about. She hears Baba's voice on the other side, reciting Maya Angelou, momentarily stopping and asking her to come in. Just a dream of course.
The sound of the crashing waves on the cliff is a cofirmation of reality. It is going to be a blustery night, as most nights are in this part of the world. It is Christmas time though. But just like any other month in this life.
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