This was a man whose life was steeped in ritual. Life and tradition lay alongside each other and bled into each other. Thatha didn’t question tradition but accepted it just the way he accepted waking up every morning at six to perform the Gayatri mantram.

He would never come around, I realized sadly. I would have to sacrifice the granddaughter to keep the lover.

Needless to say, Vinay was shocked when I called him. It was just not done, but to his credit he stammered only a few times before saying, yes, he would be at Minerva at 11 A.M. sharp.

“He said okay? Really?” Sowmya asked, her fingers trembling on the piece of ginger she was holding.

“Yes, he did,” I said, and stripped some curry leaves from their stem. “What will you say to him?”

Sowmya resumed grating the ginger. “I don’t know, but I am sure I will be inspired once I sit in front of him. You will be there, won’t you? All the time?”

“Yes,” I said, and popped a peanut into my mouth.

“I can’t believe it is going to happen. Marriage!” Sowmya sounded excited. “But I want to talk to him before I say anything to Nanna. Otherwise… life will be a waste, you know.”

“You’ll leave this house, your parents. Do you think you’ll miss it?”

“I think so,” Sowmya said, looking around the kitchen. “I like this house. It is nice and cozy. The tenants upstairs don’t make too much noise; Parvati comes regularly, more or less, and yes, I am very comfortable here.

“But I am ready for the change,” she said, and paused. She looked around to make sure no one was listening and then whispered, “You have had sex, right?” just as I put another peanut into my mouth. I all but choked on the nut.

“What?”

Sowmya gave me a look laden with curiosity. “You have, right? You live with this American and… you have, right?”

“I…” This was an intensely personal question, but she seemed so eager to know that I nodded.

“How was it the first time?” she asked.

I shrugged. I was mortified.

“Tell me,” she demanded.

I watched her put a wok on the gas stove and fire it up. She poured oil into the wok and looked at me expectantly.

“I don’t remember,” was the best I could do on short notice. Sowmya gave me a “sell me another bridge” look and I grinned, embarrassed. “I… it was fine.”

“Was it with this American?” she asked.

“Yes.” Good Lord, this was not a conversation I was prepared to have.

Sowmya threw some mustard seeds in the wok, and they spluttered in the oil. Some sprang out and landed on the stove and counter. She stirred the mustard seeds for a few moments and then dropped some curry leaves with black and yellow gram dal into the wok and let them sizzle for a while. Then she broke two dry red peppers and plopped them into the oil with crackling fanfare.

“Oh, give me those pachi marapakayalu.” She pointed to the green chilies by the sink, which I was leaning against.

She put green chilies inside the wok as well and sighed, spatula in hand. “I always wondered about it. And now it will actually happen. I am scared and excited.”

I had never seen this side of Sowmya before. This was a dreamy Sowmya, not the practical mouse I had grown up with.

She piled a deep-bowled steel ladle with yogurt and thumped the handle of the ladle on the side of the wok to drop a dollop of yogurt in it. She dropped another dollop of yogurt alongside the first and stirred hard, forcing the thick yogurt to liquefy and mix with the spices already sizzling in the oil.

“I always liked curd rice,” I said, as the familiar smell of burning yogurt filled the kitchen.

“This is the best thing to cook for breakfast,” Sowmya responded. “Fast and easy and I can use all leftovers. Pass me that rice, will you?” She added the rice left over from dinner the previous night to the wok and started to stir hard again, mixing everything into a Telugu breakfast staple.

“Do you think he will say no because I am being so bold?” Sowmya asked, almost as if she were wondering aloud.

“If he does, to hell with him,” I said.

She nodded, smiled, and turned the gas off.

Breakfast was ready.

Everyone in Ma’s family drank filter coffee in the morning. Instant coffee was okay for any other time of day but for mornings it had to be filter coffee. The coffee was made in a steel filter where hot water was poured onto rich ground coffee and filtered to make a thick decoction. The decoction was then mixed with frothy, bubbling hot milk and sugar. I remembered waking up every morning to the smell of decoction. I never got hooked on coffee but I always drank it when I was at Thatha’s house. No matter what Ma said about all filter coffee being the same-“You mix coffee decoction with milk, what skill do you need for that?”-Sowmya’s coffee was way better and she didn’t complain when I added five spoons of sugar to my coffee tumbler either.

Sowmya poured coffee in steel tumblers and put the tumblers in small steel bowls.

“Priya, I have a personal question,” Sowmya asked. She topped the glasses off with the coffee left in the steel utensil after she had filled up all the glasses.

Asking me if I’d had sex was not personal enough anymore? “Sure,” I said.

“Does it hurt a lot the first time?”

I shrugged. “Depends upon the… Sowmya, I can’t talk to you about this.”

“Then who should I talk to about all this?” she demanded. “Maybe your Ammamma would like to fill me in regarding the ins and outs of marital life. What do you think?”

I sighed. “It hurts, but it gets better.”

“Really?” she brightened. “How much better?”

“A lot better,” I said unable to keep a straight face any longer.

“But it depends upon the husband, right?”

“Yes.”

Sowmya nodded. “But I can’t test that.”

“Not in India, you can’t.”

Sowmya sipped some coffee from a glass and nodded again. “That is okay. It is going to be okay. Right, Priya?”

“Right,” I said, though I wasn’t sure what she was talking about being okay.

Minerva hadn’t changed, even a bit. It even smelled the same way it had seven years ago. My mouth watered at the sight of long crisp dosas and sizzling vadas. It was hard to get good south Indian food in America. The chicken curries and tandoori places were in abundance but the all-out vegetarian, south Indian food was almost impossible to find.

“I’m going to get a masala dosa,” I told the terribly nervous Sowmya.

“I am going to throw up,” she said, as soon as her eyes fell on her husband-maybe-to-be. “I have never been this scared before, Priya. This is a really bad idea,” she clutched my wrist. “Let us go back and we will pretend you never called him.”

I unclasped the death grip she had on me and patted the offending hand. “You don’t have to do this. But I think you need to, to be sure. It’s okay. I’ll be there.”

“You are more interested in that masala dosa,” she quipped nervously.

“Well… it is hard to get good dosa back home,” I said with a smile. “Come on. You know you won’t rest until you do this. And we have to get back by noon. Thatha wants me to let him know what my decision is.”

“And what is your decision?” Sowmya asked, still rooted at a safe distance from Vinay.

“We’re not here to discuss that,” I reminded her. I raised my hand and waved to Vinay. “Hi,” I cried out, and Sowmya closed her eyes.

She looked strange without her glasses. Vanity had taken over and she had abandoned the thick glasses for her seldom-used contact lenses.

“Namaskaram.” Vinay folded his hands and then gestured for us to sit down.

“Namaskaram,” Sowmya said. “Ah… chala, thanks, for coming here.”

“No problem,” Vinay said, and then smiled uneasily at me. “Would you like to eat something?”

“No,” Sowmya said, but I nodded and said, “ Masala dosa.”

Sowmya pinched my thigh and I stifled a yelp. “No, nothing, thanks.”