‘Yeah, my all-time favourite,’ I said as I kept the CDs in my bag and walked out
of the shop.
I reached Ananya’s place at 6.30. Uncle already sat at the table. He wore reading
glasses and made corrections on a printout of the presentation. He had kept hot
vadas on the table with red, green and white coloured chutneys.
‘Take one. It is a famous shop near my office. I brought them for you,’ uncle
said.
I looked at him as I picked up a vada. We made eye contact for the first time
ever since I had known him. I noticed that if you ignored the wrinkly face and the
reading glasses, he had the same eyes as Ananya.
‘So today, no matter how late it gets, we finish this,’ I said as I opened the file.
Uncle nodded. He pulled his chair close to mine to see the screen.
‘OK, so let’s go through each slide. I will format as we go along,’ I said.
I went through the first five slides in an hour.
‘Uncle, do you mind if I put some music on? This formatting is quite tedious,’ I
said. I opened the CD player in my laptop.
‘Play it on the stereo,’ uncle said and pointed to the hi-fi system kept in the
living room display cabinet. I too out the CDs from my office bag.
Uncle walked up with me to connect the system. He fiddled with the wires as I
noticed a one-litre unopened bottle of Chivas Regal whisky kept next to the
stereo system.
I took my chances and asked him. ‘You like whisky?’
‘No, just a little peg sometimes when I have a cold. Harish gave me this big
bottle. It will last me years,’ he said.
I kept quiet.
‘You know Harish? The boy who came to see Ananya.’