Paper Boats

Rainwater rivulets flow around our tiny garden, the green foliage heavy with droplets of rain.

Mumbai’s monsoon is welcome, giving us all respite from its sweltering summer. 

I run into the storeroom, frantically looking for old newspaper. 

My brother and I then set to work, he cutting the paper into neat squares, me transforming these squares into paper boats. 

2 ,4 , 6 , 8 ,10 our fleet is large enough so we gingerly take one paperboat at a time and set them to sail. 

Soon a fleet of tiny paper boats is seen floating away to the other end of the garden. 

Some paperboots sway unsteadily, some keep going, others succumb to the wind. 

We cheer our own fleet hoping at least one will make it to the other side. 

But it is never about who wins. Not at all. 

It is always this moment of creation, 

Of holding a paper boat in our little hands and setting it to sail in an ocean of dreams that we will one day conquer.