Page 116 of Made in Mumbai

“What happened, M? Why is your face so red suddenly?”

“Show?” Kumar bhai leaned down.

“Is it because you are so happy to be my wife?” Gautam asked with a straight face.

“You know what?” She turned on him.

“What?”

Maya thought, praying to god for once to give her a good come back. Her eyes rolled from side to side, trying to get one good comeback in this life.God, I cannot start my first day married to him with 0 points!

“Everything!” She blurted.

“Huh?”

“Nothing?”

“What?”

“‘Nothing.’ Opposite of nothing is everything? So ‘everything?’” She explained.

“I didn’t get it.”

Maya grunted, again drawing the attention of passing devotees.

“Listen, G…” she stopped, realising he was again sharing that wink with Kumar bhai.

“I am going home! And you are sleeping in the courtyard!” She folded her hands to the inner sanctum and turned to stomp out of the temple.

“Arey? Listen naa,” Gautam followed her, Kumar bhai close behind with MM and her bag.

“No!”

“Oye, M, I’m sorry… please…”

“No.”

“I have salted caramel cheesecake ordered at home.”

“No!”

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“Mu-ma,” she enunciated to her one-year old. Megha pursed her lips and kept thumping her feet down the grass. Gautam laughed from his perch on the verandah lounger, his feet up.

“Come back here!” Maya chased after their daughter, walking over soft bougainvillea petals that had carpeted most of their garden. The winter sun was light but bright, turning their lazy afternoon into a pleasant outdoor picnic. They had eaten vada pav for lunch, picked up lovingly by the 'husband of the year,’ as she had awarded him to make him pick up their lunch. Sunday lunches were street food lunches. For them. MM wasn’t supposed to touch the stuff until she was 5 (father-of-the-year’s rule).

He didn’t need to know that Maya had already shared roadside cheese dosa with her a time or two.

“She is not saying it today, you are wasting your time.”

“She will say it today only and I will win the bet! Keep the Gandhi Bapus ready, good sir,” she gave him her Queen Elizabeth lip. He only raised one mocking thumb in the air.

“Mu-mmmaa,” Maya caught up with her. “Say it. Who gives you mum-mum? Mu-mmaa!”

“Oye, cheater, that’s cheating!” He shot to his feet.

“What cheating? I am just helping her relate words.”

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