The Nomad | Sonali Raj

Close to the desert I met a lone woman with her camel decorated in red tassels from neck and hump. She undid a bag from the animal’s saddle and brought me a pipe to smoke. I forget asking or being surprised at her gesture of friendship. We sat on the step of an old fort. Her face a blur. The long road gets engraved in my memory. I see the dunes that were many miles away. On the dunes I see mirages. I see her tribe–a caravan of gruff men and camels. I see the night of her escape. It is her wedding night. It could be that she wanted me to see these things through the smoke. She leaves her husband’s people, takes off on her camel and came many months later meets me at the foot of this fort. Though I too have left something behind, she knows how to survive. I read books, I think. I have heard songs she hasn’t. From my rucksack I give her chocolate. She eats it in a gulp but I have no more. Somewhere among her things there must be the fine clothes she wore the night of her escape. She doesn’t tell me because we don’t speak a common tongue. I want to marry her in my thoughts. I slump down by the step, my back to the fort wall. She taps me on the shoulder. She takes away the pipe with a laugh.

Sonali Raj is a freelance copy editor. Her poetry and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in the Sahitya Akademi journal Indian Literature, Kitaab and other places.