Hem! Welcome. Aaduri, that colour looks lovely on you,” Manjulika said in a bright voice, ushering them into her converted sitting room.

In Ghosh Mansion, a traditional boudoir adjoined the bed chambers. At least, that’s what her husband had told her. And now that the years had rounded the edges of her many little upsets with him, she had begun to remember some of the trivia he would dispense liberally about the old house. The boudoir was formerly his darkroom (he was something of a photographer and fancied himself an artist) and after he passed away, Manjulika had stowed his equipment away and furnished the little jewel-box of a room with castaways from the rest of the house.

For instance, the pair of ivory-inlaid planter’s chairs that Aaduri and Hem were now pulling out for themselves had been discarded by Boro Jethu and Jethi when Goopy got interested in elephant conservation. Manjulika had to only get the seats rewoven.

The once-removed Ghoshes who occupied the second storey in the left wing of the house had wanted to get rid of the mahogany divan and the carved pankha from the music room but not permanently, only on a long lease. So Manjulika promised to hold them in trust even as she put them to use. (Precisely because they could be recalled at a day’s notice, both Nimki and Manjulika had got violently attached to them.) Manjulika invariably chose to sit on the divan facing the door, and now Nimki stood behind her, discreetly straightening the cover which had been stitched from old silk saris.

Then there was the tiny two-seater sofa in Burma teak that had been rescued by Lata when auctioneers had carted much of the old furniture, books, paintings and ephemera — diaries, newspapers, postcards — away, after the restructuring of Ghosh Mansion, the formal paperwork dividing up the flats, and now, Lata’s glasses and magazines, her favourite pair of polka-dotted socks and iPhone X were heaped on it. But no Lata.

Hem complimented everything in his chaste Hindi. The old Persian carpet that Manjulika’s brother had sent when their house in Ballygunge went into redevelopment; the crocheted rug and the embroidered cushion covers bearing the stamp of Manjulika and Nimki’s long afternoons and lonely weekends; the wall of black-and-white photographs of Lata’s childhood and youth (a project started by Lata’s father and completed by Ronny). Hem hummed appreciatively at everything, walking up to see Lata and Aaduri posing in school plays and college picnics.

“Where’s Lataji?” Hem asked eventually.

“When you call Luts that it seems you are the host of a singing contest on TV, referring to Lata Mangeshkar,” Aaduri giggled.

“Lataji,” replied Manjulika, switching to her accented Hindi, “Is moping in her bedroom. She was rude to Ronny, scared off Molly, fought with me unnecessarily and has now locked herself in.”

“You said some nasty things to her,” Nimki looked at Manjulika accusingly.

“That was afterwards,” Manjulika clarified.

“Better you stay on in London. You’ve become cold in the bones like the Ingrej. Are these things to tell your only daughter? Now if she doesn’t come again you can cry alone, don’t expect me to comfort you.”

“Don’t get agitated,” Manjulika replied calmly, “Get some tea for Hem at least. And check the mangsho. If it’s not soft enough, another whistle or two?”

“Don’t teach me cooking,” said Nimki, and flounced off.

***

Lata opened the door of her bedroom an inch. When she saw Aaduri, she held it open briefly, locked it after her, and climbed back into bed wordlessly.

Aaduri went straight to the dressing table. “Gaah,” she exclaimed, looking at her face critically in the mirror, “I look ghastly.” She picked up an egg-shaped tub from the beautiful clutter of Lata’s cosmetics and looked at the label interestedly. “Hand cream?” She popped the lid and squelched a few large blobs onto her palms.

“Just a drop is enough,” Lata winced, “You’re wasting money, Aaduri.”

“I am wasting money?” Aaduri said, rubbing her hands together smugly and now perching at the edge of the bed. Experimentally, she sniffed her palms. “The scent’s not half bad, though,” she said.

“It’s Chanel. Of course, the scent’s not half-bad. I am not going to speak to Manjulika Ghosh, I’ll have you know, if that’s what you’re here to demand,” Lata told Aaduri.

“I didn’t for a second assume the scent of that hand cream will be nice just because it’s Chanel,” Aaduri replied. “I didn’t like their No. 5 either, that much-feted perfume our generation went crazy about. Manjulika Ghosh, by the way, isn’t dying to speak to you. She is gabbing away with Hem. Who seems to be humanity’s gift to people’s mothers.”

Aaduri now stretched out her legs and propped herself up on her elbows.

Glumly, Lata offered her a corner of her Jaipuri razai.

“You know I was supposed to meet my co-liaison officer? Bobby Bansal?”

“Yes,” said Aaduri, “And?”

“Bobby works with Ronny. Our Ronny Young-Bengali-Gem. He came with her — I am still not sure why though. My lens fell out, he gave me his handkerchief, we had a weird moment.”

“It sounds like a Woody Allen film,” Aaduri commented.

“It was awkward — and then, Aadu, it just was not. I don’t know if there’s a word for what I felt. You know that online Dictionary of Urban Sorrows thingummy? They might have an appropriate word for it: warm and fuzzy and nostalgic. Ronny despatched that stupid Bobby to some meeting on her own — boy was she annoyed! — and then we were alone. It became kind of charged. We talked about all manner of irrelevant things. Like, all banter no substance. Of course, he did ask in a roundabout way if I was still with Ari.”

“So he stalks you on Facebook!” Aaduri laughed.

“He confessed as much. And then he came here, Aadu. He said he wanted to meet Ma. And at the threshold of this house, all lit up in Molly’s wedding lights, it became strange and confusing.” Lata suddenly sat up in agitation. “He was waylaid by Boro Jethu, whom he indulged for a fair bit. Then he came up here and Nimki and Molly and Ma just slobbered over him —”

“So?” Aaduri said. “Why on earth does it bother you so? They’ve always loved him.”

“Because...” Lata replied shortly.

“Hmm,” said Aaduri, after waiting for a while to hear the rest of that sentence which never came. “Because. That’s insightful.”

“I didn’t fight with him. I just reminded him that he had dinner plans with Pragya Paramita Sen.”

Aaduri rolled her eyes. “We might be publishing a story about Pragya Paramita Sen’s Instagram account, by the way. Apparently, she is very cool.”

“Good for him,” said Lata annoyedly. “Famous film-maker can marry Tollywood royalty. There’s no need for that story to intersect with mine. I’m done with men. And that’s the thing Manjulika Ghosh just does not want to accept! She lives in some fool’s paradise and imagines that Ronny and I will magically get back together and she will even get some stupid camera-carrying grandchild out of it. My father’s reincarnation, I suppose.”

“Twenty years,” said Aaduri, walking up to the dresser and picking up her bag. “Twenty years and I still can’t believe we’re holed up here and talking about Ronny Banerjee! There must be some strong karma.”

Lata looked up and into Aaduri’s laughing eyes, “Karma? Since when did Aaduri Bagchi start talking of karma?”

“Here,” Aaduri said, her closed fist outstretched under Lata’s nose.

Lata tapped on it and Aaduri uncurled her fingers.

There, in the shell of her palm, was a single, perfectly rolled joint.

***

Several times en route, as the traffic waxed and waned, Ronny thought he would call off the dinner and go home. But turning home-ward meant an even longer time on the road and, so, he stuck to the course. Between obsessively checking his notifications and obsessively thinking about what Lata Ghosh might have meant when she reminded him about his so-called dinner plans with Pragya and effectively asked him to leave. (It must be noted, though, he clarified to himself immediately, she did accompany him downstairs, wait for the cab with him, and in the split second before he got into the car, she did smile at him with her heart-breaking candour lighting up her eyes. It twisted his insides, every time.)

Around Ronny, the city stood familiar. Its beauty and noise and disorder and lights, the sense of its people pressed into each other on buses and roads and houses and rooms: it ebbed and flowed, ebbed and flowed. Ronny allowed his thoughts to drift. Boro Jethu’s rheumy eyes; maybe he should watch Le Jetee again; Molly — Molly getting married; Bobby’s meeting; Pragya’s diction lessons; the meeting with his favourite composer this morning.

“Sir, your phone is ringing. Sir!”

At the cabbie’s words, Ronny started.

It was Shaarani Sen. But Shaaranidi never called him!

(To be continued)

Recap: While Aaduri’s youngest employee, with her millennial predilections, decides to write an article about Pragya Paramita Sen’s brand-new Insta account, Ronny natters away with Manjulika, Molly and Nimki in Ghosh Mansion. That is, until Lata interrupts somewhat rudely. Hem and Aaduri arrive at Ghosh Mansion for dinner and are told there is war brewing.