A policeman who walked outside with Sameer threw up his hands in exasperation. ‘Sir, please get someone to drive you and take your crazy women home.’

To cut a long story short, Sameer paid five-thousand rupees to one of the men in Khakhi to avoid getting booked and Sanju came forty kilometres to pick them up. The next morning the Times Today magazine had published two rather flattering photos of Anu—one releasing a parrot and another looking in bewilderment at the horse on hind legs. The journalist had written about how Anupama Rao, an animal activist from Hebbal had got wind of animals in captivity and had come rushing in the middle of the night to release them. Anu was quite thrilled with her photos in the paper and duly bought ten copies of the same. Then she bought five more for good measure. She had to give them to a lot of people.

Even after this crisis was over, when Sanju did not utter a single word of anger or disgust about that dramatic night, Anu felt guilt flow through her veins. When she was guilty, Anu’s brain turned into mush. So she not only agreed to see the houses in Hebbal but also promised Sanju that she was going to move. Why do women get on the guilt-trip so quickly? The destination of that trip is only disasterville.

The coming weekends were plain dreadful for Anu when they had to drive a good twenty kilometres to look at the houses. Even after a month, they hadn’t found anything that appealed to both her and Sanju, some were too big for her and some not posh enough for Sanju.

As they inched through the Yashwanthpur traffic yet again that Saturday afternoon, Anu kept quiet. Now that the guilt had faded, she had turned a little cold and sinister towards Sanju to express her displeasure at the house-hunting trips. In a bid to humour her, Sanju was trying his hands at small talk. Mind you, he loathed talking while driving. But Anu had gone all monosyllable in her responses to him. He asked her if they could have dinner after seeing the houses which she immediately turned down.

After a few more minutes of silence, Anu glanced at Sanju, who was braving that horrendous traffic without a complaint. Again, very unusual of him. Although he didn’t fancy talking while at the wheels, he did curse the fellow drivers eloquently. Anu felt a twinge of guilt. Why was she making him so miserable and out of character? What is he proposing that was so evil after all?

Anu touched his hand gently. ‘Hey, Sanju. Today we will finalize a place, okay? If it means so much to you, let us do it.’

8

8

‘Sir, ma’am, a house won’t get better than this.’ The smooth-talking thirty-something real estate agent referred by Dave cooed dramatically, pointing at a Villa.