She straightened her sari shawl and looked at herself in the mirror. She licked the iron nail, then dipped it into the pot of vermilion kunkumam, slowly and steadily re-applying the coloured powder to the middle of her forehead. Priya had tried to make her use the reusable sticker pottus that came in so many colours and styles. Why would she need sticker pottus when she had her kunkumam? She had used the same colour powder and the same nail since she arrived in Sydney all those years ago. Her red pottu was straight and perfectly round. The nail had not aged and, despite her increasing frailty, her hand never faltered in this one daily task. Her great-grandchildren were coming today, and the little ones liked to press their foreheads to hers, taking an imprint of her pottu onto their own faces. You couldn’t do that with a sticker.

Today’s New Year menu was vegetarian, and simple. She had cooked as much as she could manage these days: her special vegetable noodles and potato ketchup curry for the children; puttu, aubergine curry, okra curry, and coconut chilli sambal for the adults. She wanted to offer her world-famous butter cake for dessert, but Priya had insisted on bringing a pudding. Rajan loved his daughter’s puddings, so she didn’t say no, but she secretly took a brick of butter cake out of the freezer.

She opened the front door to Smrithi and her family. Before she could kiss anyone hello, she was confronted with the bespectacled eyes of Rishi.

‘Pooti, when you die will you be reborn?’ he asked.

Nala was thrilled that she was a pooti now—a great-grandmother as well as an Ammamma and Amma. She missed her siblings, but she was grateful she had lived so long.

‘Hello, Rishi. Yes, I think I probably will be reborn,’ she laughed. ‘But I hope not, I’d prefer to go straight to God. We’ll see. How are you?’ she asked him.

‘I’m a Hindu, thank you very much,’ he said, walking past her after receiving his kiss.

She hoped that Rishi would not accost Rajan with the same theological questions; he was resting after the morning’s outing and watching Yes, Prime Minister. She kissed the stream of children and adults coming through the door and went to get her husband.

She found him sitting with Rishi, engaged in a deep conversation. She didn’t know who the Jedis were, but clearly they had a lot in common with the Hindus. Rajan was laughing and wiping his eyes and she was about to leave them when she heard Rishi ask, ‘Poota, do you think Dhara Parti will be reborn?’

Smrithi had explained Dhara’s death to the children as honestly as she could, leaving out certain details. She held her breath. She wasn’t sure if she should intervene and save Rajan the pain or Rishi the confusion.