Top News

The next morning, Lionel, returning from his regular Saturday morning yoga class, looked surprised to see Sharmila dressed in a translucent chiffon sari with her grandmother’s pearls around her neck.

He stashed his keys in the console drawer. “What’s with the sari? Didn’t realise you had plans today. Going somewhere special?”

Sharmila sensed irritation in his tone and in the stiff manner in which he put away his keys. She could read him well. She had just come down the stairs and was adjusting her sari in front of the large mirror in the foyer. She had been hoping to have left before Lionel got home, but the Uber was running late. “My mother wears a sari every day of her life.”

The guilt of going to brunch at a man’s house, a man she found madly attractive, made her snappy. Mixed in there was also some residual anger at Lionel for letting her down yesterday.

Lionel swept his hand through his hair, which he often did to buy himself a second. There was no teleprompter to help him here.

“I was invited to brunch with Vikram Shah and decided to wear a sari thinking it might give us a conversation starter,” she said, by way of...

Read more