As they sat around the large table, Jai painstakingly avoided looking at Inaya. Instead, he diligently studied the menu.

‘Are you ready with your order?’ asked the waitress.

‘Should I order for us?’ offered Jai, before anyone else could respond.

‘Perhaps we should allow them to order first given that they were ahead of us,’ said Toshi.

Habib smiled at Jai, ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘We’ve barely even read the menu yet.’

Jai nodded happily and launched into placing his order.

‘Could we please have four of your signature haleem rolls, two tandoori fish tartare, two raan chops . . . ’

‘We should have ordered first, Daada,’ whispered Inaya. ‘I don’t think there’ll be anything left for us at this rate.’

‘ . . . two Hyderabadi dals, two nihari tokris, twelve roomali rotis and three mint raitas,’ continued Jai undeterred.

‘Certainly,’ said the waitress turning to leave.

Habib called after her, ‘Er, excuse me, could we place our order too?’

‘Oh, sorry,’ said the waitress, wondering if these five guests had been kept starved for ages and set free just this afternoon.

‘What would you like?’ she asked with a forced smile.

‘Everything that they just said,’ said Habib.

‘But Daada, that’s far too much . . . ’ began Inaya.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll doggy bag what we can’t eat. From the sound of your Adeela Khaala’s menu plans, we’re going to need alternative arrangements to survive.’

Arathi shifted uneasily in her seat. The people she was sharing a table with had family members with very Muslim sounding names.

‘So, are you from India?’ she asked breezily.

‘No. We’re from Pakistan actually,’ replied Habib.

There was a charged silence as Arathi absorbed this. It was bad enough having to sit at the same table with Muslims, but to have to do so with Muslims from Pakistan was, to her mind, beyond speakable.

In this unspeakable state of mind, she gathered up her handbag and stood up, as if she were about to make a speech to which she had forgotten the words.

Jai, whose eyes were trained on the kitchen doors, was suddenly struck by the fact that his mother was standing up at their table, for no apparent reason. ‘Are you all right, Ma?’

‘Yes. No. No, I don’t feel very well, actually. I think we should leave,’ said Arathi.

‘But . . . but . . . our food . . . ’ spluttered Jai.

‘They can pack our food and have it delivered to our apartment,’ said Toshi, realizing that Arathi was not going to stay. Knowing Arathi, Toshi had expected something like this, although she had hoped that she would be more sensible about it.

‘I don’t think they do home delivery here . . . ’ began Jai, sounding almost heartbroken at the prospect of missing out on this meal.

‘Well, then why don’t you stay and bring it with you, Jai?’ said Toshi. ‘I’ll go on home with Arathi.’

Arathi turned on her heel and left abruptly, stopping only to pay their bill and letting the waitress know that they would like their order to be packed for takeaway instead. Toshi followed. Jai looked around sheepishly at Inaya and Habib, who had been silent spectators to this drama.