AND YES, TELL JIM AND CINDY THAT WE’D LOVE TO GO CAMPING. I GUESS ONCE I’M BACK I’LL BE READY FOR A VACATION.

I’LL TRY AND CALL AGAIN, BUT IT COULD BE TRICKY. I CAN CERTAINLY SEND EMAIL. MA DOESN’T UNDERSTAND COMPUTERS SO SHE’LL NOT SNOOP AROUND NATE’S COMPUTER AND HE’LL DEFINITELY CHEW HER OUT IF SHE TRIES.

I LOVE YOU,

PRIYA

I went downstairs and found my mother lying haphazardly on the couch, snoring harshly. Her thin hair, which had been through repeated bad dye jobs, lay lifelessly against the maroon fabric of the sofa. Her lumpy stomach went up and down and I could see the flesh at her midriff spill each time she breathed out. I never understood why Indian women wore saris in this day and age when alternatives like salwar kameez would not be frowned upon. A sari was uncomfortable, and the midriff-the area where most of the battles of the bulge were fought and lost-stood exposed like an unraveled guilty secret.

I looked at my wristwatch and frowned. She had made me hurry up but had fallen asleep herself.

“Ma,” I called out. She stirred a little, so I called out again and this time her eyes opened. They were bloodshot and she looked at me, slightly disoriented. Her gaze then fell on the clock. She sat up groggily.

“Go and get an auto,” she told me, then stood up yawning and stretching. “And not one paisa more than fifteen rupees. Tell the auto rickshawwallah that and if he does any kitch-kitch, I will deal with him.”

I slipped on my sunglasses, took my purse, and went through rows of houses to reach the main road. A buffalo strolled on the newly laid asphalt street and I tiptoed around it in fear. I was always afraid of stray animals on the road. The fear of buffaloes was deep-rooted, probably embossed onto my consciousness because of a “bad childhood experience” as the shrinks in all the movies say about serial killers. According to my father (my mother tells a slightly different version of the same story), when I was just seven months old we went to visit some relatives in Kavali, a small town in the same state as Hyderabad.