Choruji was Debi Mullick’s wife, and my grand-aunt by marriage, thrice removed. She stretched like a corpulent octopus over a large length of a brocade couch, and as Simi’s mother ushered me towards her, I had the distinct, uncomfortable, ridiculous notion of feeling like a sacrificial lamb.

Aunty made some unfunny joke about how our families were connected through generations. So sweet that Simi and I had become such good friends, na?

Known for being as sparing with her words as she was extravagant with her diet, Choruji took me in slowly, in detail. I remembered being deathly afraid of her as a child. The expanse of her fat swallowed up her features, and I used to be scared because it looked like she had no face.

Without warning, she grabbed my cheek and gave it a hard pinch.

‘Good nose. Still too fat, no?’

I gaped at her. But she was done with me and had moved on to Simi. Her gaze held approval now, and she smiled as she asked her how old we had become.

‘Seventeen, Choruji.’

‘Too young still, no? Three, four more years, and then we can find you a boy.’

I felt a strong rush of dislike for Choruji. Hate, almost. To be fair, it extended beyond just her. I was holding her up as a representative, symbolic and universal. And I wondered, is this really all people see when they look at other people? A nice nose and bad body? Is this all we could be? And why was this not all I could see?

That old familiar, a great blue sadness, crept up beside me. I tugged at Simi’s mother’s sari, the zardozi border pricking points into my skin. ‘Aunty, I’m not feeling well. Could I go lie down in my room, please?’

I knew of a little path, largely obscured by untended shrubbery, which led straight down from the lawns where the party was being held to the banks of the Ganges. It was muddy from the high tide, but that damn lehenga had caused me so much grief that I merely rejoiced at the wet earth collecting on my hem.

As I walked, I stopped trying to battle the sadness. I had found that letting it wash over me was therapeutic, in a way.

I am a liar. I am gauche. I am confused. I am seventeen. And I am young. Too young.

At seventeen, we don’t realize what it means to be seventeen. We can’t quite see the world for what it is, though we’ve started to feel it a bit. And it gives us, it gives me, a hint of how horribly alone the going will get.