A Muslim girl in a Hindu city.

There is a footbridge over a road.

There is a road underneath the footbridge.

The footbridge spans the road.

A Muslim girl, alabaster underneath the black... hurries on, over the bridge and onto the other shore. Endless traffic surges below, even red-lights fail to render insipidness in the flow.

A Muslim girl clad in the black underneath a gloomy sky, darting and dodging. Long fingers fashioned by weaving and caring, twirl at the black purses absently.

Meanwhile pushing and shoving, Salman Khan look-alikes bustle to and fro. Samara Hussein reaches the other shore, defiled, shamed... brushed onto by furry hands. Her mehendied feet scurry once more on the pavement, knowing not where she is going, she stumbles, flusters and moves on blindly. The slim and bony five foot frame cranes to get a look at where she is being pushed by the relentless one-way pedestrian traffic.

Suddenly a tributary deposits the sedimental Samara onto a corner. Sheltered from the prying limbs of the teeming, she withdraws into the tiny nook that providence gave to her.

Taking cognizance of her surroundings, Samara notices that she is facing an old wizened face from which droops the most impossible shade of a red beard. The vendor sits on his haunches. Varicose veins, A chequered lungi and an embroideried skullcap (dirty white) confirms his pious nature and the indifference in his eyes... of advanced impotence. "Atleast he wont poke me", blurts out Samara unconsiously.

A withered hand, venous with age, conjures. Coins, Turkish, Moroccan, Iraqi, even the heathen ones sporting an Eagle. Samara's withdrawn pupils dilate. On the weathered palm rests a continent.

Tentatively she picks one up, as if Moroccans might object (oblivious to the red-beard), she gingerly turns it over. Lifts it and smells it. It probarbly smelt of spice and fresh sea air, of mud castles and shaved men with cologne.

She keeps it. A piece of Morocco owned for Rs. 10.