Damn Jayalalitha! Damn the city police! Damn Murthy! He should be here with her. If Nalini missed her school bus, he should be driving her to school. Or maybe he should’ve ironed Nalini’s school uniform and had it ready for her in the morning. But when had Murthy ever done what was expected of him? 

The Chief Minister’s convoy passed in a flamboyant streak of a dozen cars. The waiting cars and buses revved up their engines as if making up for lost time. Sukanya followed the weaving traffic pattern of other two-wheelers and managed to work her way out of the snarl. When she arrived home, she found the gate blocked by a car. She didn’t recognize the license plate and hoped it wasn’t one of her relatives taking it upon themselves to advise her how to live her life. When she had first left Murthy in Bangalore and returned to Madras with Nalini to live with her parents, she had labeled the droves of visitors as the “Poor-Sukanya-Yatra” for they had lined up like pilgrims before a holy shrine. Now that the scandal had abated, she could not imagine who had been left out of the original pilgrimage. As she raced up the stairs, she hoped the visitors were visiting the house owners downstairs. She entered the house and stopped short.

“Ah, here she is,” her father said to Murthy. Her father sat upright, bare-chested in his white dhoti, while Murthy lounged before him in a white collared tee-shirt tucked into a pair of well-cut blue jeans, drinking coffee. Sukanya took a deep breath and the aroma of fresh home-brewed coffee filled her nostrils. Her father shuffled back into the puja room. He had already finished his morning prayers, so maybe this was the sequel prompted by Murthy’s arrival. This had always been the pattern — her father sought refuge with his Gods, her mother with her spices in the kitchen. Sukanya’s throat felt dry. She held out her helmet to Murthy and took the cup of coffee from his hand. She took a long slurp. It went down her throat scalding hot and her eyes blurred with tears of pain. She had forgotten, but her mother had not - that Murthy liked his coffee with first-degree burns as they often joked. Murthy looked down at her helmet.

“I take it you’ve come for something?” she said.

“There’s this client from America-”

She cut him off. “Come into the room, Murthy. I’m late for work. You can talk as I get ready,” she said.

“Mr. Richardson - his associate called from Chicago.”

Sukanya opened her cupboard.

“Parineeta, but she’s called Neeta.”

Sukanya pulled out a pale blue salwar-kameez outfit from the middle of the pile. By mistake she grabbed a fold of the outfit above it and the whole pile came tumbling down on her.

“He’s staying at Hotel Park Sheraton, at least I didn’t have to go to Delhi and stay at Maurya Sheraton. You know how expensive that would’ve been?”

Sukanya pushed the pile of clothes into the cupboard and shut it.

“He’s only in Madras for a day and wants to meet me for dinner.”

Sukanya shook out the salwar kameez and checked it for wrinkles. She laid it on the ironing board.