March 4. “You must be excited about tomorrow, Button!”

“Very.”

“Have you decided on a menu? I am not going to cook lunch all by myself for your friends. You must come and help out in the kitchen.”

“But I enjoy helping you out in the kitchen. I have a few items in mind and have jotted them down: Fluffy and his family love biryani and, since your prawn biryani is out of this world, can we have that as the main course please? Katrina, on the other hand, loves vegetarian food—what would you suggest we make for her?”

“Let’s make dum aloo and chole bhature for her.”

“That sounds nice. Can we also fry some bhindi? She simply loves bhindi.”

“That should be easy. Someone else who loves that vegetable is our eldest daughter. You cook bhindi for her in any form and she’ll happily eat it. You must meet her the next time she’s here.”

“I must go to sleep now or I won’t be able to wake up to help you out in the kitchen tomorrow. I am so thrilled. I also want to tidy up my room a bit and take a nice shower before they arrive.”

“What time will that be, Button?”

“Around 1, I would imagine.”

“Any dessert ?”

“Make that raspberry jelly you make. They can have it with vanilla ice cream.”

“Certainly. Remind me to show you a video of great friendship between an elephant and a dog sometime tomorrow. Dost asked me to share it with you. Do you realize that every member of this family either enquires after you or talks about you very often which goes to show how fond they are of you. You’re one lucky guy. Remind me also to give you a lovely crimson scarf I have which you can wear around your neck for the party tomorrow.  You must look handsome for Katrina.”