Three months ago: Powder Room.
The Royal Bombay Yacht Club, Colaba.

Monica looked at her reflection and did not like it. A drawn face, tired from insomnia. Sunken eyes on the verge of tears. The best foundation and concealer could not hide the dark, bulging bags underneath. Putting her hand on her lower abdomen, she then moved it up to her solar plexus and pressed it firmly. There it was, a gnawing gut, as if aware of impending doom but uncertain as to what exactly the problem was.

Monica then stared at her face, pursed her lips and whispered, “Baanjh.”

Blood curdled in her veins as tears welled up in her sunken eyes. “Baanjh.” The blasphemous word for women who cannot conceive quivered through yet again.

“Baanjh,” she repeated as Rashmi, aka Mrs Nunu, walked in tok-tok, her Louboutin heels clacking on the marble floor of the club.

“Eeew! What did you just say?”

“I just repeated what I overheard this morning. Raghu’s phone was in speaker mode when he was talking to his mother. She said it. He put the phone off speaker mode just as I entered the room. But the cursed word did not escape me.”

“Really?”

“I could not get the entire phone conversation, but it seemed as if she was agreeing with him. It seemed like he was asking for approval.”

Rashmi looked into the mirror to check on her red lipstick. It had smudged a bit at the corners.

“These men are such idiots. Balding, ageing, but no, they still need Mummy-ji’s approval. Nunu is the same.”

Hearing the secret nickname for Rashmi’s husband (coined by a sexually frustrated Rashmi herself), a small smile flitted across Monica’s sad face.

“So glad the mention of Nunu made you smile. He is of no use otherwise. And c’mon now, we have work to do. This club serves the best dhansak–rice in the world, damn it, but I just Googled. Mutton dhansak has 415 calories. Plus, we had brown rice. That is another 396. We don’t want to be getting fat now.”

Saying this, she headed to the loo, pulling Monica by her skeletal arm. Next, both the lunching ladies dug their acrylic talons deep into their mouths and expunged the world-famous mutton dhansak from the Royal Bombay Yacht Club.

“I feel something terrible is going to happen,” Monica mumbled as they walked down the imperial corridors towards her car.

Rashmi asked, “You have been feeling this for long, na? Is it that same one, that sales girl Raghu is screwing?”

“Vice president sales,” corrected Monica. The valet opened the door of the Bentley and Monica took the driver’s seat. She rolled down the window and, giving him a currency note, looked at him and said a quick thank-you. Strapping her seat belt she added, “From Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management.”

She then tapped her finger on her temple. “The woman has brains. She tripled business for him in the two years that she has been with the company. Raghu is smitten by her. Calls her his Luckshmi. L-U-C-K-shmi.” Saying this, she rolled her Bentley into the crowded roads and the cacophony of Mumbai.

As her car drove down Haji Bunder, Rashmi asked Monica, “Do you think you and Raghu have fallen apart because you don’t have kids?”

Monica heaved as she pointed to a looming gate that gradually came into view: Suri Charities. It belonged to Monica, from her parents and forefathers. It was a sprawling ancestral estate which housed several aids. An adoption home, a home for the destitute, a cancer hospice for the terminally ill, an experimental theatre and a free primary school for the underprivileged – it was a haven of goodness. A green seafacing oasis bang in the heart of Mumbai, it had been her great grandfather’s land. In 1932 the governor of Bombay Presidency had inaugurated the property for the welfare of the poor and destitute.

“I mentioned adopting a child from the adoption agency on our estate. But no. Some crap called ‘humara khoon’. And it is not just Raghu or his mother. My parents also think that a child must be borne of bloodline.”

“Do you miss having a child, Monica?”

“Not at all. I am absolutely okay not having one. But the constant pressure of my family’s unfulfilled expectations of me is choking my life. Yaar, I have done all the things everyone asked of me. Now if I can’t have a child, is it my bloody fault? Am I no longer good enough for my people? I am fed up yaar!”

A beat. The car rumbled on. Rashmi touched Monica’s arm and she took a deep breath.

“All I want is to be accepted for who I am. That’s it. Just the way I am. Is that asking for too much?”

Rashmi stared at Monica. Such existential crises were not her cup of tea.

Excerpted with permission from Madness in Mumbai: When Forty Gets Naughty, Vrushali Samant, Rupa Publications.