“That’s not me,” she whispered.
He was quiet for a long moment. Then he reached into his bag and pulled out the sketchbook. He tore out the drawing of her—the one with the basket, under the banyan’s roots-as-rivers.
The next morning, the spot under the banyan was empty. But Shakeela didn’t feel its absence. She sat down with her basket, her charcoal pencil now—a gift left on the root—and began to draw.
“For the city,” she said. “So you carry something back that isn’t dust.”
Shakeela first saw him sitting under the banyan’s farthest root, pencil moving furiously. She approached not out of interest, but irritation. That tree was hers .