March 18. “I enjoy my night walk with you thoroughly.

Can I suggest something if you’ll allow me to? Both didis are extremely tired by the time they return from work. Why don’t you let them put their feet up and relax? The two of us can go for a walk, feed Shabby and the other baby and come back!”

“Not a bad idea: I’ll suggest it to the two of them tomorrow. Shabby has begun to recognize us—you saw the way she and the Other One bounded up to us the minute we called out to them? It made my day.”

“Have you also noticed that Shabby is famished every night and, not only eats his share but gobbles up the Other One’s food. Other One on the other hand seems well fed because she nibbles at the food, eats a little and moves away.”

“There’s something else I noticed on the drive back from the club with Dost. The footpath opposite the Shalimar Hotel has been dug up and from the look of it, it seems that the BMC is widening the road. I have, in the past, seen an elderly lady sitting on the footpath selling earthen pitchers. There is also a paanwala selling his wares. Do you realize that they will have no means of a livelihood once the road is widened and the footpath is gone? Where will these people go?”

“The name—Other One—needs to be changed.”

“But why?”

“It’s too long.”

“Can you think of one?”

“What about Raja?”

“Let’s call him Raja.”