The Missing Moon

Many moons ago while driving to Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station, two-and-a-half-year-old Googool was intently peering out of the car window. "Moon," he said to his Ma, pointing an index finger to the dark sky outside.

"The moon's coming to see you off," Varsha said, in a motherly calm tone. And until our little black car took a right turn at Ashram and the moon went out of his view, Googool kept a constant watch on the white circle in the sky.

As the Nizamuddin-Indore Intercity Express chugged out of the station and the moon made a reappearance behind the dark moving silhouettes of trees, poles and buildings, "Pa, moon!" an excited cry broke the flow of the Twitter feed on my phone.

"The moon is coming along with us to your Nanu's house." Ma's words brought an irritated expression to Googool's face. The moon, to him, appeared as an unwanted hitchhiker in our family-exclusive trip.

It was a supermoon on Raksha Bandhan and Googool was trying to explain to his grandfather, with the language skills he is gradually acquiring, how the moon came with us all the way from Delhi to Indore.

The moon didn't make an appearance on the journey back and Talking Tom kept echoing Googool's words till he dozed off to sleep.

A week later, on the balcony, Googool kept looking searchingly at the sky. There was no white ball of light. He pulled his Ma to the other balcony on the opposite side of our 12th floor home. Only a few stars, but no moon.

"Call Nanu," he commanded.

The call was made, but Nanu couldn't decipher the excited rambling and the phone passed on to Mamu.

"Mamu, we left the moon back in Indore," Googool tried to get his distress message across, in a mix of Hindi, English and Bangla.

"Please take a train and bring the moon here," he suggested.

"Jaldi!"