I saw Sammy sprawled on the couch, staring at the TV with a glazed look in her eyes, TV remote in hand. She was watching the latest season of Bigg Boss on mute and simultaneously shoving what looked like Aryan’s left-over khichdi into her mouth.

‘Hey Sammy’, I whispered, plonking myself on the bean bag next to her. ‘Is that your dinner?’

‘Huh? Meg!’ Sammy emerged from her trance, seeming to catch sight of me for the first time. ‘Thank God you’re back. Do I have news for you! Guess who’s in town tomorrow? The Momster! She’s back!’

Two

‘Wha-a-at? She’s back? When? How? Did she call you?’ I paused and sank back into the bean bag, feeling the beginnings of a deep sense of foreboding. Our mom—whom we lovingly referred to as the Momster because of her strict, disciplinarian parenting style—was back! That could only mean one thing: in the next couple of days she would be in our midst.

After Papa, a retired Air Force commodore, had passed away, Mom had continued to live alone in our hometown of Dehradun, refusing to entertain any thoughts of moving to ‘the concrete urban jungles’ where Sammy and I lived. A retired geography teacher, she now taught part-time at a local school in Dehradun and volunteered on and off with an NGO in our neighbourhood. Since Papa’s death she had also taken up the practice of vipassana, a rigorous mediation programme, the pursuit of which required complete silence; and she was returning now from two weeks spent at one such vipassana camp.

Lately though, Mom seemed to be more interested in pursuits of a different kind: my foray into the ‘marriage market’, as she kindly put it. At the ripe old age of twenty-six, I was still single and, in Mom’s opinion, halfway over the hill. All the eligible bachelors among our circle of acquaintances had been snapped up by females who seemed half my age, and every new matrimonial alliance seemed to drive Mom further into despair. Her single-minded devotion to getting me married was what was causing the sense of foreboding now. I knew that once Mom got here she would earnestly renew her so-far-spurned efforts at directing me towards matrimonial bliss.

It was with a heavy heart that I headed to work the next day, thoughts of the Momster swirling in my mind. She was scheduled to arrive that evening, ostensibly to spend time with Sammy and Aryan, but I knew what other devious plans she had up her sleeve. Besides, it was only Tuesday morning, which meant I had another four days of juggling both Momster and Vile Varun before I could use the weekend as an excuse to get away from it all.

Today was also the day when we got to meet the new creative team from Blue Strawberry. Blue Strawberry, one of the largest ad agencies in the country, had been working with GF for more than a decade now. They had a wide array of clients ranging from automobiles to consumer goods and were highly acclaimed in the ad industry for their award-winning work on several brands. I interacted on a day-to-day basis with two of GF’s departments: the creative team, which was responsible for creating the ads for all our brands, and the servicing team, which liaised between us and the creative team and helped us with strategic inputs.