The Calcutta Chromosome

Calcutta: August 1995. Urmila abruptly gets up and darts across to the restaurant manager’s desk to call Sonali. When Murugan catches up to her, she’s in shock, and tells Murugan that Sonali has disappeared. Urmila, apparently, was the last person to see her, and that was at 10:30 last night. Murugan, though, indicates otherwise, saying he’d seen Sonali getting out of a taxi at Robinson Street around 1 a.m. Despairing, Urmila hurries out of the restaurant and flags down a taxi to take them to Robinson Street.

Slowed by heavy traffic, Murugan begins to think that this might be too much for Urmila and suggests to her that maybe she should just go home. However, Urmila quickly rejects this idea. Urmila then asks Murugan why he’s willing to continue on. Murugan tells Urmila he contracted syphilis when he was 15 and met a pimp—the syphilis occurred shortly after. Though he’s cured, Murugan claims it still affects his head.

Sonali wakes to the sound of rain blowing in through the flapping shudders. She is lying on the floor and can barely open her eyes. She does not know where she is or how long she’s been here. In the distance, she can hear street noises, but everything is quiet in her vicinity.