‘I am telling you, Mo, someone tried to kill me! It was an attempt to murder me!’

Mo looked back at the video call screen, startled out of her usual composure. Ankita looked a mess. This was not something that could be said about her often. She was the best-looking person Mohini knew in real life.

‘What happened, Anku? Take a deep breath and tell me everything.’ Mohini said. There was no point in showing the alarm she felt to her friend.

Her grandmother had materialized at her door so fast that there was no doubt that she had been keeping an ear out for anything interesting. She hobbled over and sat next to her. Mohini adjusted the phone so Dimma could see. She had recently moved in with her maternal grandmother and had accepted with wry good humour that she would get zero personal space for as long as the lockdown endured.

‘I have had the worst day in my life, Mo! I was nearly killed in the morning…a tempo traveller hit me.’ Anku said.

Dimma gasped as Ankita tilted her phone to show one leg encased in plaster.

‘Where did this happen, dear?’ Dimma cried out in alarm. Mo’s face settled into a thoughtful frown.

‘At the junction after Netaji sweets, where the lane meets the arterial road,’ Anku answered, red-faced. ‘I was walking, my usual morning walk you know. I saw a tempo traveller approaching, so I stopped on the kerb to let it go by. Just at that moment someone…someone pushed me from behind. Right into the path of the vehicle.’

There were cries of consternation from Dimma again.

‘I guess it had already slowed down to take the turn further down the road, because it didn’t kill me. Just broke me instead.’ Ankita gave them a brave smile through her tears.

Mo stifled an uncharitable thought about Anku’s instinct for melodrama while telling a story and asked, drily. ‘Was Amit with you when this happened?’

‘Uh, no. We-we don’t walk together anymore. He jogs in the evening instead. He’s gone for his jog now.’

Dimma went off like a siren again. ‘Leaving you alone in this state? Oh, what is wrong with that boy?’

Mo was moved enough to say, ‘I say, that’s a little much! Do you need me to come over? I can, you know.’

Anku sighed but shook her head. ‘No, it’s not safe. We went to the hospital today and might have been exposed to the virus ꟷ we should be in quarantine for 2 weeks from today.’

Mo nodded her head. It was right to take precautions and she could definitely not risk bringing the virus back to her 80-year-old Dimma.

Mo left her more sociable grandmother to ask the standard questions about her friend’s health, while she sat and digested the news. Despite Mo’s muted reaction to this latest bombshell, Anku was a good friend of hers ever since their University days. Their 12-year-old relationship had recovered from blows many others would crumble under. It probably helped that they were like yin and yang, one all drama and romance, the other practical and ploddingly methodical.

Mo broke into the conversation once again, ‘You were pushed? Did you see by whom?’

‘I didn’t. I had my hood up, so that obscured my side vision. But I didn’t hear anything either and then suddenly there was a hand in between my shoulder blades and a tremendous push. I’ve never been so frightened in my life.’

‘What time was this again?’

‘Around 5:45 am; a few minutes after, to be exact.’

Mo sat very still, thinking. ‘How did you get home though, Anku?’

‘I called Amit and he took me home. He took his time about it though, bastard. At least half an hour. The tempo driver stayed with me till he did. Decent chap, I must say.’

Dimma tsk-ed. ‘That boy.’ She did not like Anku’s husband much.

Ankita started to cry, ‘Oh, it’s been awful Mo, so awful.’ Her nose and eyes started to water profusely. She pressed a wad of much-used tissues to them.

Mo wished she was there with her. She spoke up in her clipped manner. ‘It’s over now, Anku. Eat something and go to bed. I’ll call you again in the morning.’

Mo clicked on her phone to terminate the call.

Dimma looked like she had more questions, but Mo knew that the answers would only come in due time.