The "doom" light

I used to sit on the front steps in the evening when I was younger. Pati would spread her sari for me, and the two of us would sit there while the light faded from the sky. She would narrate stories of crows and sparrows while the evening wind wandered among the branches of the huge tree. That time, the car had not been bought; and so, from where we sat, we could see the front gate with its S-shaped bars, and the street beyond. Pati would often point out a familiar person on the road, but I would be gazing at the leaves fluttering against the garden fence. When it grew dark, mother would turn on the light in front, bathing us in a yellow glow. The bulb was inside a circular metal frame covered by a metal-glass dome that had four curved protrusions placed symmetrically. The frame was old and rusted, but it fascinated me. I held it in my hands just once, when they took it down and threw it away to a servant.

-excerpt from an unfinished manuscript.