my son’s reflection bounces in the mirror festooned with baby fingerprints and smeared lipstick a miniature Dev Anand drowning in my grandfather’s clothes sweater tied around his shoulders perched beret ready to burst into a song for his childhood sweetheart he flutters his eyes and mimics Rajesh Khanna’s smile nestled in my mother’s first wallet my son is playing the first loves of the women in my family trapping me in their celluloid dreams where they spin in chiffon saris on snow-capped mountains the wind tousling their hair and their laughter superimposing with soft violins the silver screen is our earliest memory and dying wish our eyes blinking like bulky camera shutters freezing only a singular frame blink for a light brush of the hand blink for a shy glance blink to forget how we drifted towards our husbands like a lost passenger drifts towards an empty seat in a train carriage here we fall in love in a train carriage or at a cousin’s wedding because it’s meant to be because we are the exception for the man who stretches his words like caramel toffee cursed to cradle his DVDs in the shelf of our arms on the way home press play and rewind and play until we become a tape recorder of everything he says my mouth a tape recorder my eyes a bulky camera shutter staring at my son stumbling into a leather jacket stretching his arms like Shah Rukh Khan and in unison we all blink.