In spite of all my grumbling about Loss of Private Space, I'm glad Paati's here. She's got this catty sense of humour that definitely wasn't handed down to the Mater, as is evident from all the frowns I get every time I keep Paati up late asking her for more stories, more stories, more stories. But then it isn't Ma's fault that she walks in every time her office romance is being recounted. It may be all Amol Palekar types but I don't think you'd want to watch your mother and your daughter giggling over it, which is perhaps why we do it only when she's around.

Having tried and failed splendidly at studying Middle English Literature from seven to eight thirty, I've spent the larger part of the evening watching Zee Cinema. Television must be brought back into my life, what was I thinking. Sunday Superstar has always been Amitabh Bacchan since God knows when, but will do, the songs are tops and I know most of them by heart. So I sing along and all the while Paati keeps reading out tips from the Tamil magazines she brings folded neatly between the saris in her suitcase. How to have feet as soft as lotus flowers. How to make your wedding sari's zari last. How to treat burns with aloe vera. How to (snide smile) get rid of acne. And then she looks at me and says, it's not bad the way you've turned out, although you keep getting thinner (I gasp on cue), but the marks, tchah, the marks.

And I turn to her and say, yeah, it's like Anthony Gonsalves would say. Pukka eediyatt dikhta hai.

And then we laugh, and she says, you're turning out better than I thought. It's just your Tamil that's ghastly.

And since I cannot explain how much of writing this down has gone the lost-in-translation way, and since she'll always have the last word anyway, I'll stop and haiku some more. It's turning into an addiction all right, mostly because I get to count syllables on my fingers. No laughter please.