‘Perhaps you’d feel more inclined to visit Mina if I told you,’ Mo’s mother was in full salesperson mode over the long-distance call, ‘that your aunt is the current guardian of a priceless family heirloom. ‘The Chowdhury Sapphire’ they called it. What a dramatic family! Said to be cursed, too.’ Mo heard her mother’s delighted chuckle, and visualized the shake of the head that came with it.

‘It should actually, by dint of inheritance laws, have been your father’s, being the eldest and all. But he turned down the responsibility and I quite support that.

‘However, now’s your chance to take a peek at it! I always wanted to see it, but was never given the chance.’ Mo could sense the hurt in her mother’s voice.

Mo thought longingly of the thali dinner cooling on her table. She had taken a solo trip to Kalimpong, adding some days of leave to the Christmas break her company (an ad agency where she did a little bit of everything for a little bit of money) had given its employees. Like with everything else, the company was miserly with leave, and seemed to take it as a personal affront if employees showed any sign of having lives of their own.

Personal affront or not, with the tiny pittance that she received from her 6 months of work, Mo had taken herself off to Kalimpong for Christmas.

She’d booked a room for herself in a low-end hotel in the 7^th Mile area popular among backpackers and college students. The rooms were poky, the sheets scratchy, and the tiny TV mounted on the wall didn’t work; but it was as clean as could be expected, and close to the spots of interest, so Mo had no complaints. She didn’t plan on staying indoors more than she had to anyway.

On her second day there, Mo had called her mother as part of their nightly requirement to let her go alone without a fuss. But she had now been saddled with an errand, typically, to visit some long-forgotten aunt she’d last seen when she was 12.

‘Just visit Mina,’ her mother was saying firmly. ‘For your father’s sake. You know he is completely cut off from his side of the family, and lives here with what is left of mine. God knows, Ma is not always an easy person to live with. Sometimes I wish he at least had his own side to go and vent to, as we all do. The Choudhurys were awful and toxic but at least they were his blood. I see that ever since you went to Kalimpong your Baba’s been all distracted, gazing out the window and not responding to anything I say. I caught him looking at old photo albums with his sister’s pictures in it. Do go and visit Mina, take a few pictures with her. I feel it will do your Baba a world of good.’

Mo blew out a sigh of resignation which misted in the night air. ‘Sure, Ma, give me her phone number.’

‘I don’t have it, but I can tell you exactly where Mina’s house is. She lives in that house on the top of the hill after Haat Bazaar. It’s old, and absolutely beautiful. Completely green, inside and out. When we used to visit, it had glazed green tiles on the floor, and a big skylight in the ceiling. When the sun filtered in during the day, I remember thinking it looked like we were under water. We used to go often. And then even once after her divorce.

But the final rift with her family happened after Mina remarried, several years later, when she was nearing 40 – to a man quite a bit younger. Quite handsome. Mahesh Singh.’ Mo detected a coquettish note in her mother’s voice when she said his name.

‘Your father was OK with it of course. Or rather, as he rightly said, ‘I don’t have to be OK with it, it’s her bloody life.’’ Mo’s mother deepened her voice in a bad imitation of her husband.

‘Unfortunately, your Baba is the only sane one in that horrid family of his. Mina was so hurt about the furore that she cut herself off from the lot of them, and your dad was collateral damage. It’s been 12 or 13 years since we’ve seen her. Just look her up, and come and tell Baba that Mina is OK. I think you’ll like her. No-nonsense sort…like you.’