Tehnaz Bahadurji

Here in Chennai, we call it the Ponnu-paakaradhu - the girl-seeing! Even though this was a very informal one, that is still what it was. Suchitra and Sumitra, their mum and dad, Geeta and Raman, receiving Raman's friend from the past, Valli, his wife, Meena, and their two sons, the eligible, foreign-returned, tall, dark and handsome Amit, and the youngster Shamit. Valli and family were coming over for coffee since they just happened to be in that part of the city. Amit had finished his studies and had returned to Chennai, and his parents were dragging them around, visiting relatives and suitable friends, and temples, to give thanks for his dutiful return to run his Appa's business. Geeta had been in a flurry all day, ensuring things were perfect. The perfect light vadai, the aromatic coffee, the shining ever-silver stainless steel dabara-tumbler, the sweetest smelling flowers for the girls's plaits and her own bun, crisply pressed shirt and veshti for Raman. Even new sari

His den was his refuge. It wasn't much of a den, just a few odd sofa chairs and scarred and wobbly tables, but it had a TV, and what else does a man need? Plus it was in the basement, and nobody wanted to come down those steep stairs, so he was mostly undisturbed. When it had been just Pearl and he at home, he hadn't needed the den. She kept her remarks to the half-times and ads. They'd sat upstairs, side by side, he watching, she reading, and life had been blissful. Then this female preoccupation with having a baby had started, and while he couldn't see the need, he'd given in after some resistance. Babies were a nuisance, he was well aware, but wives tended to want them. But usually, babies only became a nuisance after they were born. This one had made his life hell from Day Dot. First, it made Pearl very sick, so she couldn't do everything she normally did for him, and he had to do things for her instead, which was damned inconvenient. And he let her know it.