Miss New India

Mr. GG hadn't meant to stand her up. That buoyed Anjali's spirits. Mr. GG the assiduous networker was cultivating Auro and Parvati, and Dynamo the futurist was courting his muse. She missed Rabi, but he had left at dawn for another travel magazine assignment. With Rabi, she could blurt whatever outrageous thought came to her because he wasn't judgmental. Mr. GG was signaling his desire for her, wasn't he?-but in a respectful way. What they'd both let happen that one time in his apartment had to do with lust, with the quality of light in the bedroom, and, through an uncurtained window, with Cubbon Park's lushness. Her face felt hot. She needed to do something with her hands, pour more tea if the teapot hadn't been drained, or stick the flowers in a vase, something physical to tamp down her excitement.

'I'll get a vase,' she said abruptly.

Parvati stared at her, baffled, so she pointed to the tiger lilies dripping greenish stains on the dog walker's shirt front. 'Vase?' Parvati repeated. She had scribbled her RSVP at the bottom of Mr. GG's note and was about to slip it back into the original envelope. 'Are you all right? Oh, of course, it's Bagehot House, isn't it? How insensitive of me to have let slip that name. I'm so sorry, Anjali, would you rather I disinvite Girish? He has business in Mexico next week, but we can have him for dinner when he gets back.'

'Oh no,' Anjali protested. 'Please don't change your plans for my sake. I've already been enough of a burden. I feel like such a parasite.'

'Stop!' Anjali couldn't remember Parvati ever sounding so sharp. 'You are not a burden. Let's get you a flower vase. If you are here long enough, I'll make you an ikebana enthusiast.'

The dog walker perked up when he heard the English word vase. The Banerjis joked that he knew more English than he let on so that he could eavesdrop. 'Swati!' He shouted instructions in Kannada, and the younger kitchen sister bounced in with a cut-glass bowl nestled against her chest, a thick braid dancing down her back. A teenager in love, and not hiding it.

So that was her name. Swati. Anjali felt guilty that she hadn't learned the names of even the kitchen sisters, let alone the compound staff: the dog walker, the driver, the watchman. Swati pried the tightly bound bouquet out of the dog walker's bemused grip. Anjali didn't miss the intensity of that covert caress.

Mr. GG's peon dropped the resealed envelope into his bag. The dog walker responded to that stimulus and escorted the peon out to the waiting auto-rickshaw. Then he ran back into the room and handed one internal air- letter to Anjali, which the mailman had just left off in the mailbox nailed to the guardhouse. Anjali took a look at the address- P. Champion, Gauripur -and crumpled the letter. When she went back to her bedroom, she stuffed it into the top drawer of her dresser.

7

Girish Gujral texted Parvati: cu @ 7pm dnr raincheck?

By four in the afternoon Anjali had decided on her look for the special evening. (Artfully) simple, (effortlessly) sexy. She mixed and matched every piece of clothing in her made-to-measure Dollar Colony wardrobe, and by six in the evening she'd achieved that look: dusty rose linen capri pants; rosy dawn midriff-baring sleeveless top with daring neckline; silver anklets and high-heeled snakeskin sandals dyed neon pink; tiny rose-quartz ear studs; and as a hair ornament, one of Mr. GG's tiger lilies.

Anjali came down to the living room at six-thirty and installed herself in a corner chaise longue, where she knew the lamplight was pinkish and flattering. Parvati was on the phone with Rabi's mother in San Francisco, sharing kitchen chitchat twelve hours and half a world apart, including tips on shrimp malai curry (go crazy with the garlic; caramelize the diced onion; slow-saute the spices so they don't taste and smell raw; canned coconut milk is for amateurs; steep, squeeze, discard coconut flakes and use just enough of the liquid so the jhol has thok-thok consistency). Auro was still showering. Anjali tuned out Parvati's voice, now gone on to serious topics with her sister, in Bangla, the hiss and sizzle of the kitchen sisters deep-frying pakoras, the gardener's son and nephew practicing birdcalls just outside the open window. Soon Mr. GG's car tires would scatter gravel on the unpaved road.

Auro slap-slapped noisily into the room in stiff-soled Kohlapuri sandals. He acknowledged Parvati with a shrug and a mumbled, 'What's your sister up to now?' on his way to the bar trolley. 'What an enchanting vision!' he exclaimed to Anjali. He made a camera with his fingers. 'Click! Click! Pensive Woman Awaits Nightfall. Why isn't Rabi here to capture this?' Anjali responded with a half-wattage version of her halogen smile. Auro lifted the lid of the ice bucket. 'What'll you have, Pensive Woman?' In his modish turquoise cotton kurta and loose white pajama, his bristly wet hair sleeked back, he looked a relaxed host. 'The usual?'

She winced when she thought back to the squabbles and tears on the rare Sundays that her mother persuaded her father to have 'Munitions' Mitter and 'Tobacco' Nyogi and their families over for lunch. 'A waste of my sweat- of-brow savings,' 'Railways Bose' ranted. 'What favor have they ever done for us?' The only person he tolerated as a regular visitor was Dr. Fit-as-a-Fiddle Dasgupta, who was smart enough to leave after a double peg, which he earned by dispensing medical tips: hartaki-steeped water for constipation, ajwan water for indigestion, folic acid pills for child-bearing daughters. 'Yes, please. The Auro Special.' The Auro Special was a fizzy sweet-sour nonalcoholic cocktail that had become Anjali's new signature drink, and Swati brought out freshly blended ginger and mint paste, lime juice and chilled syrup when Auro was ready to play bartender.

'Don't do anything rash, Tara,' Parvati begged her sister on the phone, 'and promise you'll call me back in a couple of hours?' She flipped her cell phone shut. 'Tara's cooking as therapy. She says cooking calms her, and the more elaborate the recipe, the better. She's sick of the same old, same old fight with Bish about where to retire. Bish wants us to look into Bangalore properties. Whitefield, Palm Meadows, for a start.'

'Don't get sucked into Tara's problems,' Auro admonished his wife. 'Gin and lime? I'm serious, never lend money to relatives, and never, never give marriage advice.'

'It better be a scotch tonight, Auro.'

'That bad?'

'Bish wants to settle here, but she wants to bring up little Kallie in San Francisco.'

'In other words, your sister would rather live in California than in Bangalore.'

'Once Bish has made up his mind, it seems there's no changing it.'

Auro laughed. 'Pull of homeland, et cetera. We know about that, except you and I were on the same page.' He fixed Parvati's drink: a halfpeg of single malt.

'Bish'll keep the San Francisco place for Rabi. That's the only concession he's willing to make. Tara's very upset.'

'Upset as in furious? Or upset as in depressed?'

Anjali marveled at how openly they were discussing family fights in front of an outsider. Rabi's mother was lucky to have a sister she was so close to. She remembered her last bitter fight with Sonali-di in Patna. She'd been a novice runaway with a heavy suitcase then. She still had that suitcase, and she was still running. Boldly, she asked 'Would you be offended if I changed my mind and asked for a glass of the Sula chardonnay instead?'

'As long as you promise not to get tipsy, my dear,' Parvati joked. 'Auro, did I tell you Bish is thinking of investing in a winery around here?'

'If it was anyone but Money-Spinner Bish, I'd say it was a crazy idea.'

MR. GG PARKED his car in the Banerjis' driveway at two minutes before seven. Anjali had surreptitiously clocked him on her hand-me-down Movado. She pretended it was the wine, though it was Mr. GG's entrance that gave her a happy buzz. He was still in the dark suit that he wore to the office, but he had undone the top button of his starched white-stripe-on-white shirt and loosened the knot of his pink silk tie. Instead of a briefcase he carried a cellophane-wrapped gift basket of assorted nuts, candies and dried fruits. He presented it formally to Parvati, who showered him with thank-yous-'Oh, Girish, you didn't have to'-and handed it to the dog walker to unwrap.

'Mrs. Banerji,' Girish Gujral announced, thick hands folded in na-maste, 'your home is an oasis for weary wanderers. You see how I'm drawn back again and again.'

Anjali, trusting instinct, decoded his flowery compliment to the hostess as his confession of lovesickness for the houseguest. She had dared hope for only a hint of his feelings and was rewarded with a declaration. She, not the house, was his oasis. Pleased, she arranged her legs on the chaise as she'd