Anima is relieved, but also sad. Poor Feroze of Altamount Road. He had been shocked out of his wits to hear about the marshland housing scheme. ‘I could give you twenty thousand this minute,’ he had said, shaking his head when Sanjay had asked him for a loan. ‘But this is illegal. This is corruption. We shouldn’t be part of it. You don’t lack anything here. Stay on, no problem.’

Blushing up to his hairline, Sanjay had confessed that he was getting married. How could he continue staying in the garage with his bride? ‘Good, good. Getting married. That's good.’ Feroze was thrilled. ‘Then why an illegal jhopdi? We’ll get you a pucca room. Legal.’

Feroze went into rapid inquiry mode. A brick-and-mortar room in a legal block out in Kandivali would cost three and a half lakh rupees. Feroze didn’t have that kind of liquid cash to give. But they could apply for a partial loan from a bank. But no bank would give a home loan to anybody who could not produce a ‘salary slip’. Feroze told his bank he would give Sanjay salary slips for every month of the seven years he had worked for him and stand guarantee that he would repay the loan promptly every month. He was told that would not do. Feroze was neither a company nor an establishment. He was a mere individual. Neither his word, his guarantee, nor his salary slips held any value for banks.

Feroze applied to his banker friends for help. They too confessed helplessness in helping Sanjay. By now Sanjay was feeling sorry for his sahib. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said to Feroze. ‘I’ll manage.’ He had planned to borrow from a moneylender.

‘Sahib knew that borrowing from a moneylender meant a lifetime of paying back, Tai.’ Sanjay smiles wryly. ‘He was very upset. One day he said, “If an honest man like you can’t get a loan for a legal house, I’ll give you a loan for an illegal house.” He gave me the money there and then, Tai, interest free. It was sad for him. But I have a room. I needed only two truckloads of debris. Ten neighbours helped.’

‘So the bride will come into a spanking new home.’ Anima smiles. ‘Have you found one?’

Sanjay ducks his head shyly and grins, fit to split his face.

The car winds uphill to Altamount Road and turns in at the wide gates of Windermere. The gulmohrs along the drive have shed every leaf but are thick with flowers. As Anima steps out of the air-conditioned car, the afternoon slaps her like a blanket steamed in a furnace. She stands still for a while with the red-hot gulmohr burning into her eyes. ‘Please enter, your ladyship,’ Feroze calls out from the bay window on the ground floor. He opens the door himself. Behind him stands a smiling Jijabhau, hands folded in a namaskar.