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‘That?’ came Pitajee’s message, the next second.
‘Anju Aunty has asked me to stop going to the cooking classes she thinks I go to. They are obviously no good.’
‘HAHA. Not bad!’
‘There is more.’
‘?’
‘She has called up a friend of hers who runs cooking classes for brides-to-be and specializes exclusively in making Indian bread.’
‘Dear lord.’
‘Yes, dear lord. Anju Aunty has paid for thirty classes. I will have to go twice a week.’
Although Pitajee was about forty kilometres away from me, I could almost hear his crazy laugh.
8
Our Apartment, Delhi, 27 January 2013, 1.00 a.m.
What was that, a squeak? The door opening? Maybe it was a burglar breaking in? Where was that fake plastic pistol I bought from the Diwali mela? Oh no, I’d left it in the office.
Note to self – bring fake Diwali-mela pistol from office and keep it by the bedside.
1.01 a.m.
Not a burglar … a cat maybe?
1.02 a.m.
Two cats? Cats talking to each other? One cat and one burglar? One burglar and his cat?
Still groggy, my head spun.
Was my brain playing tricks on me? Side effect of the cough medicine Purva got for me? Would I begin to hallucinate and die from hallucinations?
This seemed to make sense.
Maybe.
1.03 a.m.
Was that Anu crying?
3.00 a.m.
Anu and I met when I started working in India Telecom Private Limited, where both of us were part of the same management trainee programme. We shared a room during the induction and had been flatmates since then. Through break-ups and patch-ups, leaking taps and overheated boilers, absent maids and milkmen who would not leave, Anu and I had emerged stronger than ever.
In all these years, I had never found Anu awake in the middle of the night, in tears.
‘Anu!’ I said aghast, rushing to her side. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I love Amay,’ she said, referring to Pitajee.
‘Oh yes, of course,’ I said, sitting down beside her on the bed. The warm glow of the lamp cast a melancholy shadow on the hunched-up body, racked with sobs. ‘What’s happened, Anu?’
‘Mom and Dad are adamant, Kas. They won’t listen to me.’
