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 …
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.