December 28. 9.46am. “Button, the four of us had a wonderful day yesterday.”

“It was obvious you would. Now let me guess some of the things you did.”

“Go ahead.”

“One of the to-do items must have been having Kolkata’s ‘phuchkas‘, what is known as ‘pani-puri’ in Mumbai!”

“Correct. In fact, that’s one of the first things we did on the evening of our arrival. Didi suggested we go to the same pani-puri wala she and a friend ate from when they were there for a shoot. We found the man and even had pani puri served by him but wasn’t impressed. Yesterday we tried a different guy and he was better.”

“The next thing you did was purchase a white shawl you had picked up for your younger daughter on one of your earlier trips and which went missing and was never traced. Did you find another one?”

“We did. We also ate egg rolls at Nizam’s and strolled to the glass bangle wala. Dost insisted I buy lots of glass bangles and wear them because he loves to see me in them.”

“They look great.”

“Anju, a friend of mine introduced me to glass bangles. She used to wear them a lot and my first dozen of the accessory was bought by her. I think I have told you about Anju. She is also responsible for getting my nose pierced.”

“What you are going to do today is visit your mother. Does she know you are there?”

“I doubt it.”

“How do you think she will react?”

“She’ll be shocked for sure.”

“Have you realized that your Kolkata trip has put on hold on the story we were writing! ”

“I want to re-write the story.”

“We can do that.”