Some conversations are brewed, not planned."

It was raining in the morning, and rain has a strange effect on me—it makes going to the office appear almost like a violation of human rights. I therefore decided that office could manage without me for one day.

Madhuri, however, had a more constructive suggestion.

"Let us go shopping at Spencer's in South City."

Now that sounded considerably more dangerous than going to the office.

After lunch, Gopal drove us to South City and parked the car in the basement. Madhuri picked up a shopping trolley and marched into Spencer's with the determination of a field commander.

We were there for a very simple mission: vegetables, rice, dal and a few other household necessities.

But Spencer's had other plans.

To reach the humble vegetables and dal section, we had to negotiate an obstacle course of biscuits, mixtures, chocolates, breakfast cereals, sauces, noodles and what seemed like the entire packaged-food industry. And, as if that wasn't enough, every beauty-product brand appeared to have stationed a young sales girl at its border.

The moment we entered their territory, they started advancing.

"Sir, would you like to see our new…"

"No, thank you."

"Madam, we have a special offer…"

"No, thank you."

We dodged them like seasoned political campaigners avoiding questions from journalists.

Finally, after crossing what felt like several international borders, we reached the promised land—vegetables, rice and dal.

Mission accomplished, we proceeded towards the bakery counter. Madhuri selected some pastries for home, while I spotted something far more important—a cup of Darjeeling tea.

I ordered one and occupied a table in the seating area outside.

The tea arrived hot and fragrant. Madhuri didn't order tea, but naturally, after watching me enjoy mine, she took a sip from my cup. Marriage has many such invisible taxes.

A lady who looked distinctly Southeast Asian then occupied the chair opposite me. Her driver was busy doing the shopping. She ordered a cup of tea and initially seemed a little hesitant when I struck up a conversation.

Then she noticed that I had left the two little sachets of sugar untouched.

She laughed.

"I will put both of them in my tea, though my doctor has strictly told me not to take sugar. I am diabetic."

I laughed.

"Then enjoy life while you can!"

That broke the ice.

I asked her whether she was of Chinese origin. Kolkata has a long association with the Chinese community, so it was not an entirely unreasonable guess.

She burst out laughing.

"No, I am from the Philippines."

The moment she said Manila, my mind—which has a talent for wandering off on its own errands—shot straight to Ferdinand Marcos, martial law, and that whole extraordinary spectacle of 1986 when the strongman finally fled the Malacañang Palace and the world discovered, with some astonishment, that his wife Imelda owned somewhere in the neighbourhood of three thousand pairs of shoes. I did some quick and slightly rude mental arithmetic—if she was in her late fifties or sixties now, she would have been a schoolgirl during the People Power Revolution, perhaps old enough to remember the tanks on EDSA, or perhaps young enough that it was just a story her parents told over dinner. I decided against asking. Some historical curiosities are best kept for Wikipedia rather than tea-table conversation with someone you have known for ninety seconds.

From there, the conversation changed character completely.

She started talking—and I realised that she had probably been waiting for an opportunity to talk to someone who would simply listen.

It is curious how people sometimes pour out their hearts to complete strangers. Perhaps there is a strange freedom in speaking to somebody whom you know you may never meet again.

She told me she had been married to Captain Ghosal, a ship captain, for 32 years. He had passed away in 2024.

Then her voice became serious.

Her husband, she told me, had been deeply affected by the gruesome murder of the young doctor at R G Kar.

"How can any human being do such a thing?" she asked. "What kind of person can commit such butchery?"

There was no need for me to answer. Some questions are better left hanging in the air.

Naturally, I wanted to know how she had met Captain Ghosal.

She told me that she had been working for a shipping company in Manila when a friend introduced her to Captain Ghosal. There was a three-month courtship—and then marriage.

"Only three months?"

She smiled.

Apparently that was quite enough.

She told me she had never wanted to marry a Filipino man. According to her, among Filipino men, having relationships with other women was, in her experience, rather socially tolerated. Wives might know that after office hours their husbands could visit another woman—even a prostitute—and it was not necessarily treated as a family catastrophe.

I remembered having seen *Too Late the Hero*, the Michael Caine film set in the Philippines, and wondered whether that rather liberal social atmosphere had something to do with what she was describing.

While listening to her, my thoughts wandered to my friends Jaggi and Sikka. With conversations like this, one never knows where the mind will travel!

Then she suddenly laughed.

"You Indians have such a strange system of arranged marriage. Two complete strangers are brought together and told to get married!"

I had to agree that, when put that way, it does sound rather dramatic.

She then narrated what had apparently amused her enormously.

She had once asked the wife of one of Captain Ghosal's three brothers:

"When did you first meet your husband?"

The answer was:

"At our marriage ceremony."

She gave a tremendous laugh.

"Imagine! Two complete strangers meeting for the first time at their wedding and then sleeping together that night. How embarrassing!"

I tried to explain that our ancestors had probably developed a very efficient system for eliminating unnecessary dating expenses.

But by then we were both laughing.

After that delightful and rather unexpected conversation, Madhuri and I took leave of our new acquaintance.

On the way out, I suddenly noticed the wine shop.

Well, after spending an afternoon negotiating supermarkets, beauty-product sales girls, Filipino marital philosophy, a stray detour through Marcos-era history and the mysteries of arranged marriage, I felt I had earned a little something.

So I ducked into the shop and bought a bottle of Sangam, an Indian whisky I had heard was quite good.

After all, every intellectual discussion deserves a suitable conclusion.

And mine had started with rain, passed through Darjeeling tea, made a brief stopover in Malacañang Palace, and ended with Sangam.

A perfectly ordinary shopping trip—by Indian standards.