The Ten Minutes I Lost My
Nephew at the Dussehra Ground

He Was Holding My Hand Right Up Until the First Spark

We had a good spot near the front, close enough to feel the heat when it started. Rohan, my sister's boy, had been glued to my side the whole evening. Then the first cracker inside the Ravan effigy went off, the crowd surged forward as one, and in the two seconds it took me to steady myself, his hand wasn't in mine anymore.

You Cannot Shout Over a Dussehra Ground

I called his name twice and heard how pointless it was even as I did it. Fireworks, dhol, ten thousand people cheering the effigy coming down. He is nine and about waist height in a crowd like that. Turning in circles looking for the top of a small head got me nothing but more disoriented about which way we'd even come from.

My Sister Was Calmer Than Me, and She Was Home

I called her expecting to have to say the worst sentence of my life. Instead she said she was already looking at his location, that his phone was showing him about a hundred and fifty metres east of me, near the food stalls, and that he was moving slowly, not being carried off anywhere fast. She stayed on the line and talked me through the turns like a passenger reading a map.

He Had Gone Looking for the Jalebi Cart

That was it. The surge had pushed him sideways, he'd spotted the cart we'd promised to visit after, and a nine-year-old's logic said go wait there. I found him standing next to it, completely unbothered, mildly annoyed I'd taken so long. The ten minutes had happened entirely on my side of it.

We Kept His Phone Charged the Rest of the Season

He is too young for a phone of his own, really. But on festival nights he carries an old handset of ours with nothing on it except the family circle, fully charged, in a zipped pocket. Not so he can call. So that if the crowd takes him again, the search starts from a dot on a map instead of from the top of a small head in a sea of them.

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