Mandira Pattnaik

In the time it’d take to call you, the rains start pouring in Dubai. The TV screen turns black then blue then resumes telecast. Somebody says, “Historic event! Not comparable to anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949 – and that was before the UAE was established in 1971.” They cut to scenes of several layers of dark clouds, like the way it was dark under the blanket you and I pulled over our heads to escape Mamma’s beating. “She’s in one of her bad mood phases, sister. Count to ten. Maybe she won’t be able to find us this time.”, you’d say, as if the beating was a distraction for her. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but stayed quiet under the blanket. A spectacled expert, in all solemnity, says: “It is cloud seeding. Of course it is. Once conducive clouds are identified, specialised aircraft equipped with hygroscopic flares take to the skies. These flares, mounted on the aircraft's wings, contain salt material components. Upon reaching the target clouds, the flares are deployed, releasing the seeding agent into the cloud. The salt particles serve as nuclei around which water droplets condense, eventually growing heavy enough to fall as precipitation in the form of rain.” The anchor of the show looks enlightened, but someone else doubts the theory.

They beam images someone captured: of lightning striking on a tower, at the same spot, one after the other, like bullet firing. The color is a deep purple, almost violet --- the color of your shirt when you boarded the plane to work as a canteen worker in Abu Kadra Café, but you anticipated there would be a change and told me so. You worried you’d end up as construction labor---the same as your friend Vinesh, who fell from the thirtieth floor. 

We---Mamma and I---watch, spellbound, live images of the devastating rains, curled on the tattered sofa while the sun explodes outside our window, and the heat is unbearable. It must be early afternoon in Dubai, but the lights are on everywhere in the buildings. The torrent is resolute, incessant, deliberately vicious, and weighing down at the place where you must be now, clinging to a pole rusting at the edges, cold and wet in your work tee and helmet, but staying put nonetheless.

In the time it takes for the phone to ring, I have muttered: Brother, are you fine? a dozen times and prayed for your safety. But the phone keeps ringing. We almost dread a call back, what if it is a stranger’s voice?

I press my palms against my eyes until it is as dark as it was under the blankets, and count to ten.

Mandira Pattnaik's fiction has appeared in IHLR (2024), SAND (2023) and The Rumpus (2024). Her body of work, numbering over 300 pieces, centers around social issues, but sometimes also employs slipstream. More on her author website.

Want to read more Funicular? Subscribe once. Forever.

Funicular is open for submissions for Issue 15 and online right now!