He clutched his undone pyjama drawstring, an extreme rage distorting his yet unshaven features. He could barely keep the yellow-stained pyjamas from falling. “Mehroo! Arré Mehroo! Where are you?” he screamed. “I am telling you, this is more than I can take! Today, of all days, on Behram roje. Mehroo! Are you listening?” Mehroo came, her slippers flopping in time – ploof ploof – one two. She was considerably younger than her husband, having been married off to a thirty-six-year-old man when she was a mere girl of sixteen, before completing her final high-school year. Rustomji, a successful Bombay lawyer, had been considered a fine catch by Mehroo’s parents – no one had anticipated that he would be wearing dentures by the time he was fifty. Who, while trapped in the fervour of matchmaking at the height of the wedding season, could imagine a toothless gummy mouth, morning after morning, greeting a woman in her absolute prime? No one. Certainly not Mehroo. She came from an orthodox Parsi family which observed all important days on the Parsi calendar, had the appropriate prayers and ceremonies performed at the fire-temple, and even set aside a room with an iron-frame bed and an iron stool for the women during their unclean time of the month.
