When Dragon is not praying or worrying about her ‘old body’—and consequently praying for it to last as long as possible—her favourite pastime is finding fault with the way I run my house.

The first time she had come to stay with us, she’d rearranged everything—and I mean everything! I’d been at work the whole day and when I came back home …

The sofa set in the drawing room had been shifted around. The fridge had been moved out of the kitchen and into the dining room. She had changed the position of my potted plants in the courtyard, shifted my crockery and glassware from their designated cupboards and even thrown out my laundry basket because she didn’t think it was the right one.

But the most infuriating bit was when I realized that Dragon had been through the chest of drawers with our underwear and socks. She had folded Sid’s socks and arranged them by colour. She had also embroidered an ‘S’ on to each of his undies.

I had taken the whole house-rearrangement in my stride and kept my cool, but when I’d seen the underwear …

‘Excuse me, Momji,’ I’d said, ‘there’s an S on Sid’s undies—’

‘I’ve always done it for him. Poor boy used to mix up his undies at boarding school,’ she said, smiling fondly.

I’d almost screamed then. Sid wasn’t at boarding school anymore—and unless she expected me to wear his undies, what mix-up was she talking about?

‘But Momji—’

‘I’ll stop if you want me to. I’ll apologize to Sid as well and let him know that I upset you, but I didn’t mean to. I’ll tell him that his mother doesn’t want to interfere in his married life,’ she said, pulling a phoney sorry face.

I didn’t say a word to her but I spent the entire evening—and half the night—putting my house back to exactly how I had it before her arrival. Dragon’s never forgiven me for it.

I close my eyes and send up a silent prayer to whichever god is listening—I need Dragon to wake up because I have to go to work!

Nothing has gone right since her arrival. Sid came late yesterday and we didn’t talk much. He was either constantly on the phone or constantly instant-messaging his boss on MSN messenger. This morning, too, he left without saying much. He just told me he was going to Mumbai for a couple of days.

Then Comma emailed a caustic feedback to the blogger-story brief I mailed her last night. It was a long, sneering email, which essentially said I’d written s**t and needed to re-think my story. I don’t know if she’s sent me any text messages since morning because now I can’t find my mobile phone.