Gypsy Masala. Preethi Nair

I had done; what I was planning to do—that I had no job to go to, that I was going to move out and be an actress? I thought about what the bag lady had told me, to see things from different perspectives, but the facts were clear. My Auntie Sheila would be truly mortified. And then there was the rest of the ‘Mob’ that she would have to break the news to. They had already been dealt a heavy blow six months earlier when Navi (Auntie Asha’s daughter) decided to go travelling for a year. Secret talks were conferred in a bid to dissuade her, a deposit for her own flat was even offered, but to no avail. Navi went. What I was now going to do, especially after my broken engagement, would most probably lead to Auntie Sheila’s downfall. Auntie Meena had her eye on the top job and was waiting for an opportunity to step in and take over.

      

      Auntie Sheila was head of the Mob. She drove around in a tinted black BMW with a personalised number-plate that read SHEILA 1. My Uncle Bali had bought this car for her for their thirtieth wedding anniversary last month and the comment she muttered under her breath was ‘Sheila didn’t win anything.’ My uncle had very selective hearing and so he didn’t hear this and continued to undo the big pink bow he had put on it as he handed Sheila the keys. Shortly after, Auntie Meena pulled up in our driveway with a new silver Saab convertible—there was no way she could be outdone—and the outside of our house would have looked like a show’room had it not been for my Auntie Sasha’s clapped-out Mini Metro, which Sheila insisted she park on the road, although Sasha didn’t.