Around ten, Anu’s phone pinged. ‘Got any good dinner stories?’ Pete!

‘Dancing on the tables. Can’t type right now.’

‘You had promised to buy me an out-of-the-world Masala Dosa.’

‘Anu always pays her debts. Tomorrow morning at nine in Gandhi Bazar. By the way, it is Masale Dose. Valar Morghulis.’

‘I stand corrected. Valar Dohaeris.’

Too bad Pooja wasn’t there. Their Game of Thrones references left her fuming. ‘You both are like Mean Girls. Talking in code to exclude me.’ Anu smiled at the memory. Thank God, they still had a month of all that fun before Pete left. She was going to lap up every moment of it.

‘Pete, listen to me carefully. For that to-die-for Masale Dose, you have to be aware of a few ground rules.’ Anu met Pete at the Gandhi Bazar circle.

‘I am listening.’ Pete walked next to Anu carefully. ‘But not if my feet get squished under one of these.’ He pointed at the vehicles zooming by next to them.

‘Oh, don’t worry. Nobody steps on anybody’s toes here.’Anu hauled herself up onto the footpath. Pete followed her sporting a look that was part afraid and part amused. Anu continued. ‘Now, first of all, expect a half-hour wait to be seated. Then, expect a twenty-minute wait inside to get the food. Be forewarned, in a table for four, we will have two strangers eating with us.’

‘I could live with that.’ Pete sighed.

Anu grinned at him stopping at a small nondescript eatery with a large crowd gathered ahead of them. ‘We have arrived.’

After the highly anticipatory wait (all the while getting roasted in the sun), Anu heard the old usher call her name. ‘Oh boy, my name sounds so sweet coming from him,’ Anu murmured and grabbed a table that had two empty seats.

‘How are we to squeeze into these two tiny chairs?’ Pete looked bewildered.

‘Oh, please sit down before we lose the table.’ Anu glared at Pete, making him scoot to the wall. She took the other seat.

Anu ordered three Doses for the two of them. Otherwise, they would have to wait another twenty minutes. When the Doses arrived, Pete finally smiled. Biting into the Dose (holding it in his hand like it was a wrap) he said dreamily, ‘How can something so crispy on the outside be so soft on the inside? This is heavenly.’

‘This is an art perfected here for over seven decades, Mister. Told you it was worth the wait.’

When they sipped their coffee, their tablemates changed. A youngish guy and a middle-aged man, obviously unrelated to each other. Anu thanked all her stars that the older guy hadn’t come in when they were still eating. He coughed nonstop like a sputtering engine.

The younger guy politely asked the cougher to move to another table.

‘If you have a problem, you move.’ The man coughed his words.