The welcoming smile drops from Kavita’s lips. A blink breaks her momentary paralysis. Puzzled, her eyes dart from the glass in her hand, to the stranger’s hairless crown, and back to the glass again. What did he just say? she thinks. Who is he?

Sheepish, she places her scotch on the coffee table, and avoids the man’s pandit-like gaze.

“Just ignore him,” Nirav whispers.

“You heard what he said?”

“Just let it go, all right?” The next moment, Nirav’s father introduces him to the strange man. Nirav stands, shakes hands, and tells him what a pleasure it is to meet him, with a wide grin.

Kavita sits in silence, unnamed, without being introduced.

She wonders if this her punishment for roguish behaviour, being out of place, disrupting their customary order of: women over here, men over there?

Quietly, she excuses herself and ventures next door to see if she can find better company among the women.

Maya sits hunched on a chair close to the doorway, frowning and texting on her mobile. Kavita leans on the wall beside her, clears her throat, and waits to see if any conversation might flow between them. Maya keeps her eyes fixed on the glowing screen in her hands, her thumbs moving with impressive speed.

“Kavita, dear,” Mrs. Stone says from the opposite corner of the room. “Come and say hello to everyone.”

Crossing the room, Kavita slowly makes her way along the line of women seated on the floral settee, folding her hands in namaskar and greeting them with a slight bow.

At the far end, she finally meets someone she knows, Nisha Auntie, Dilip mama’s wife. She is a plump woman, with waist-length black hair, puffy from years of brushing out its disobedient curl, which she always wears in a long braid draped over one shoulder. She is wearing a purple cotton sari and grey cardigan. During their last visit, this same auntie pinned a charm into Kavita’s sweater to help ward off the dreaded evil eye, a loving gesture as steeped in caring as it was village superstition. Kavita is happy to see her.

“How are you, Kavita?” Nisha Auntie asks, her grin warm and genuine.

“I’m fine, thank you, Auntie,” Kavita replies. “And you?”

“As well as can be expected, haan?”

Kavita nods.

“Have you learned to speak Bengali yet?”

“No, Auntie, not yet.”

“Ahh,” Nisha Auntie nods, an expression of slight disappointment on her face. “And tell me, how are your parents? How is their health?”

“As well as can be expected,” borrowing a line from Nisha Auntie.

“When will they be visiting us?”

The question comes as a slight shock. Kavita’s parents are in no shape to make the journey and bear the exhaustion of visiting from house to house. Nevertheless she answers, “Maybe next year.”

“And how about your brother?” Nisha Auntie goes on. “How is Sunil?”