I was on my way to Sanjay’s house on my bike.

It was raining heavily, the kind of rain that goes phat-phat-phat against your rain-coat, making you squint to see the road ahead. I must’ve gone a few metres when I noticed the family on the scooter burrowing along ahead of me. He was driving, and she was behind him holding a child. All I could see of them were his brown raincoat and her green sari and as we negotiated one pothole after another, together, I stared at the only face in the rain I could make out. It was a little girl, the child, and as the rain battered her mother and her father and the odd little guy in the blue raincoat behind her, she looked up at me with eyes still then unfocused and gave me a lazy smile.

Then she hugged her mother’s arm and went back to sleep.