Ganesh Visarjan

I run out in a daze.

It was already late evening when I heard about the fire. By then, the crowds had started thinning. The great Elephant God had disappeared beneath the ocean, and beneath a sea of people.

They say a stray firecracker near the seashore caused the inferno, resulting in a stampede.

I stumble over hands and legs and faces that lie crushed. The injured moan, the dead lie still.

After hours of wading in the dark through broken people and broken gods, I sit down under a drooping, old Ashoka tree. My flashlight guides me to a familiar checkered shirt. I spot a torn picture.

It is a picture of me. The very same one he always carried in his wallet.