With soft but swift steps, Sukanya ran down the stairs to the side of the house. She took her Scooty off the stand and pushed it to the gate. She opened the gate and wheeled it to the end of the lane without making a sound. Before she started it, she pulled out an old jacket from the luggage box. She carried it with her for emergencies, in case she ran into mechanical problems. She wore the jacket, noting with satisfaction the grease spots and a scuffed edge. She tied her hair in a tight topknot and secured it with a clip. Her helmet was in the house, so she used an old scarf from the luggage box to hide as much of her hair as she could. Now she looked just any other call-center worker driving back home after the second shift. She started the vehicle and sped towards Hotel Park Sheraton. She had to get Murthy’s anniversary gift to him before midnight.

Chennai, Singara Chennai had started its nocturnal activities. Water lorries came into the city from the outskirts where they sucked precious ground water to supply parched city homes. Transport lorries that straggled behind for mechanical problems now raced out of the city trying to make up for lost time. Movie posters were being pasted on walls. As Sukanya slowed down to let them pass, a few urchins brought their fingers to their lips and let out piercing wolf whistles in spite of being weighed down by movie posters and vats of glue. Even with the scarf covering half her face and the raggedy jacket, they realized she wasn’t supposed to be driving unaccompanied at this time of night.

Sukanya started her search at the restaurant where they had spent the tortured evening, and followed the route to the beach. But there were so many roads, lanes and alleys that led to the beach. She took the main road, her eyes darting from side to side. A car in front of her screeched to a halt behind a water lorry and Sukanya jerked to a stop behind the car. She tried to maneuver around it, but the crowd around the lorry wouldn’t have let her through. Lorry-jacking. It was a daily occurrence for water lorries. Water lorry drivers raced through the streets as if they owned the city, and own it they did, with customers trying to out-bid each other for a tankful of water. Women in Madras did not stay up for errant husbands or wayward sons. But anxiety about the safe arrival of a water lorry would keep them up all night. What if the lorry was waylaid by ruffians? - who were, in reality, merely a section of the population who could not afford to buy water.

Sukanya held her vehicle in place by placing her left foot on the road. She had never been out alone at this time of night. She had never seen a water lorry roadblock in action. It was like a festival of colors. Women were making a beeline to the lorry with multi-colored plastic pots. But where were the toddlers whose sleep was washed off from their eyes by an unexpected fresh water bath at midnight? — toddlers who were bundled into the same scruffy clothes after the unwelcome bath and sent to bed? Where were the children who splashed in water spilled from overflowing pots? Strangely there was no air of merriment. An eerie silence cloaked the ordered lines. Women watched their pots like mothers guarding a newborn. When the pot was full, they hefted it on their heads and left in silence avoiding eye contact with their comrades in crime. Surely a successful water lorry jacking was cause for celebration?

“Where’s all the fun and frolic, thatha?” she asked an old man sitting on his haunches by the curb.

He took a deep puff on his beedi. The smoke blew out in angry puffs. “Sinners, that’s what they all are. Sinners,” he said.

“Ah, thatha, everyone needs water. Don’t be so hard on them,” she said. 

“Water?” he spat on the packed earth behind him. “Even when a man lies dying before them? So what if the driver and his helper run away? Even before the police could come and take the body away, they were coveting the lorry load full of water. They wouldn’t even use the water to wash the blood from the road.”