‘Mom, please!’ I muttered, but the Momster was in full flow by now. ‘I can’t understand why you would want to continue working for a company that treats you no better than bonded labour. We have barely seen you for the last two months because of those stupid biscuits. Bright Biscuits, it seems! Bah! Do you even know what you’re doing with your life, Megha? If you had just listened to me earlier, you would have been well settled by now. Not at the mercy of some cruel boss who doesn’t even want to give you any credit for the work you’re doing.’

The doorbell rang just as I was frantically jiggling the grey cells to come up with an escape route and Mom hurried to see who it was. I used the opportunity to quickly escape to my room, shutting the door behind me. I was surveying the impact of the oil onslaught on my hair when the Momster peered around the door.

‘Beta, there’s a friend to see you.’

‘Oh? Is it Debbie?’ I asked, but Mom had already left the room. I hurried outside, perplexed. It couldn’t possibly be Vijay at this time—he would be on his way to the conference by now. I couldn’t think of anyone else who would come at this time on a Friday, with the sole exception of Debbie who was in town on a holiday.

I burst into the living room expectantly and froze in my tracks. ‘Yudi!’ I sputtered. ‘What… how… are you doing…umm, what a surprise!’

‘Pleasant surprise, I hope,’ Yudi said dryly, looking at me with unsmiling eyes. I flushed, suddenly realizing that I was still dressed in the raggedy old jeans and pink plaid shirt I had been wearing since yesterday. The shirt was one of my old favourites; it was my comfort shirt, the one I always wore when I was feeling low. But while it was high on the comfort factor it did absolutely nothing for my looks, I thought in dismay as I looked down at its worn, threadbare condition. To top it all I now also had a few gallons of Mom’s ayurvedic mind-calming concoction plastered on my head, making me look like a grease ball oozing with oil.

‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ I replied coldly, refusing to rise to the bait and get into a tiff with Yudi. Maybe I looked like a wreck but I would show him that I still had my dignity intact. Yudi opened his mouth to speak but Mom suddenly came bustling in with her low-sugar chai and digestive biscuits and he began exchanging pleasantries with her. Amazed, I looked at the two of them chatting away so easily. I had never seen this side to the Momster before. Right from my school days, every single one of my male friends had been subjected to a treatment combining disdain and suspicion in equal measure. Mom’s cold shoulder treatment had continued well into adulthood, with the sole exception of men falling in the prospective bridegroom category. And now here she was merrily chatting away with Yudi about some common connection they seemed to have discovered in Almora. And Yudi! He was all polite conversation, respectful smiles, the dutiful good boy personified! Any more of this reverent behaviour and it wouldn’t be too long before Mom actually boxed him into the prospective bridegroom category, right up there with Gautam.