The birds have probably been awake for hours. Not the squirrels though. The knife-grinders and carpet-sellers call out so early from the crisscrossed streets, one can hear them in one's dreams; and yet they're out only much after the squirrels are already up, busily carrying invisible messages up and down the telephone wires and whipping up a storm in the mango trees. Everyone's watch is set to a different time and the Earth revolves slowly or fast depending on the state of one's heart.
Inayat is awake and Hina, asleep. The phone rings. Inayat gets out of bed.
'It's for you, Hina.'
The sound of the phone did wake Hina but she's reluctant to move. She murmurs her indistinct, waking-up grumble with her eyes shut. Inayat smoothes away the hair with which sleep has curtained her face and lies down beside her again.