THE MAD WOMAN

In the kitchen of Poppy’s Bar & Restaurant, preparations for Holi were proceeding apace. Azeem Lucknowwallah, the restaurant’s head chef, had prepared a special eight-course menu for the occasion, one that would capture the essence of the festival of colours: a celebration of the arrival of spring, a time to forgive debts and forget past indiscretions, and a marker of the ultimate victory of good over evil.

Lucknowwallah, once renowned in the city’s premier restaurant circles, had emerged from retirement to work at Poppy’s, driven by the fact that his own father had been a policeman, killed in the line of duty. Lucknowwallah’s arrival was a notable coup for the restaurant, yet sometimes Chopra couldn’t help but wish that he was a less highly strung personality. The man was in constant need of reassurance.

Take today for instance.

Chopra had returned to the restaurant to catch up with Rangwalla. It was then that he had learned of the strange request made by the Queen of Mysore, a request that gave him pause for thought.

He had always treated the eunuch community with respect, but the thought of working for the Queen bothered him—he had no wish to align himself to a small-time kingpin. And yet, considering the matter, he wondered how he would feel if the Queen’s suspicions ultimately proved correct—what if her girls came to harm? In a society so strongly prejudiced against them, the eunuchs needed someone to look out for them. Chopra had always endeavoured to do so, and found that he could not abandon them now.

Setting aside his personal misgivings he agreed that the agency should take the case. He asked Rangwalla to handle the matter.

“But what do I do?” protested Rangwalla, aghast at the possibilities.

“I leave that to you,” said Chopra firmly. “My hands are full with this Verma business.”

After the meeting Chopra had been summoned to the kitchen for a tasting.

Chopra had resigned himself to the trial ahead. The chef rarely did anything by halves, and his angst over a new dish could lead a perfectly sane man to drink. But such were the sensibilities of the artiste, Chopra reflected. In all good conscience, he could not complain. The man was a miracle worker and his efforts on behalf of the restaurant had afforded Chopra the time to devote to his detective agency. He did not wish to lose Lucknowwallah, and so he did his best to accommodate the chef’s occasional bouts of creative neurosis.

Now, as he stood at the kitchen counter, flanked on either side by the assistant chefs, Ramesh Goel and Rosie Pinto, with Irfan and little Ganesha looking on, he found himself sweating with nervousness. He knew, from past experience, that the chef took rejection very personally.

He picked up the spoon of umber-coloured pickle from its bowl, placed it inside his mouth, and swallowed. A few moments of nothing… and then, without warning, a grenade exploded between his cheeks.

Chopra yelped and ran to the sink. Thrusting his face under the tap, he allowed the water to roar into his mouth.

Behind him Ganesha dipped his trunk into the bowl of pickle and scooped some into his mouth, Irfan watching him carefully. Ganesha’s eyes widened, and then he bugled a shrill note of alarm, trotted to the sink, butted Chopra out of the way, and stuck his trunk under the tap, before shooting water into his mouth.

Finally, man and elephant turned back to their waiting audience, Chopra’s face scarlet, Ganesha’s ears flapping in agitation.

“Well?” asked Lucknowwallah, practically swaying.

“What was that called again?” Chopra wheezed.

“That is my special Rocket Fuel pickle,” said the chef. “Guaranteed hottest pickle in the city!”

“It’s certainly hot,” coughed Chopra, wondering what further punishments the pickle would inflict on him as it corroded its way through his system.

The chef looked pleased. “By the way, Poppy called. Irfan, she wants you to go to the bazaar and buy some Holi powder. And Chopra, she said to remind you that she expects you home for dinner with the Malhotras.”

Chopra scrunched his brow. He had completely forgotten.

Poppy had invited over a colleague from the St. Xavier Catholic School for Boys, where she had recently begun teaching classical dance and drama. She had been reminding him for weeks, but he had paid little attention. Social engagements did not interest him; yet he did not wish to disappoint her and had, reluctantly, agreed to be there.

Cursing and grumbling, he headed home.

As Irfan and Ganesha swam along the Cigarette Factory Road in Chakala, breasting the foot traffic, they couldn’t help but peer in at the row of hole-in-the-wall shops that lined the street on both sides. Streams of shoppers hurtled past, buzzing around each other as they flitted from vendor to vendor likes bees seeking the most fragrant flower. Negotiations were fierce—the voices of steely-eyed housewives could be heard above the din, beating down canny vendors who swore that if they reduced the price any further they would be put out of business and their children sold into slavery.

With Holi around the corner everyone—from vendors of coloured powder, water balloons, sparklers and windmills, to street-painters and rangoli artists—was enjoying a brisk trade.

Apu’s Sweet Emporium, with its mouthwatering display of Indian sweets, was besieged.

Ganesha stared longingly at a steel tray piled high with yellow, ball-shaped ladoos, but Irfan, perhaps sensing that the little elephant was about to help himself again, tapped him admonishingly on the top of his head. They passed a fruit-seller with pyramids of melons and pomegranates; a bangle-seller whose neatly laid out boxes of bracelets and glass bangles reflected, in a million colours, the hanging festival lights criss-crossing the street; the spice merchant with sacks of chillies and powders and tar-like blocks of tamarind pulp; the idol-maker carving marble figurines of Lord Krishna; the boiled-egg-seller vying with the papaya vendor as they hollered for customers.

Ganesha paused outside a dimly lit pottery workshop, breathing in the great belches of hot air gusting from the entrance. A trio of potters in dirty vests were sitting cross-legged before their wheels, shaping red clay into tiny earthenware lamps for the upcoming festival. Irfan knew that the spinning wheels fascinated the elephant, and he would stop each time they passed this way.

The eldest potter looked up and grinned through blackened teeth. “Ho. It is you again, Ganesha Sahib.” He beckoned the elephant forward. “I think perhaps you were a potter in a former life, yes? Here,” he said, “why don’t you try?”

He sat back and waved a hand at the spinning wheel.

Ganesha glanced up at the smiling man, as if he couldn’t quite believe his luck, then stepped forward and dipped his trunk into the ball of unshaped clay, watching in astonishment as it flared into a crude bowl shape.

The potter plucked off the misshapen artefact, and set it to one side. “Not bad,” he said. “It’s better than half the things Ramu here produces. Come by and pick it up tomorrow when it is dried.”

At the mouth of a narrow alleyway that led off the Cigarette Factory Road, Irfan and Ganesha ran into the Mad Woman.

Two weeks ago the Mad Woman had taken up her station in between the public latrines and an enormous mound of rubbish. Together the two created a smell that no ordinary human could tolerate for more than a few seconds, yet the Mad Woman appeared to breathe it in as if it were the perfume of the legendary Valley of Flowers on Mount Nanda Devi.

To Irfan this was ultimate proof of her madness.

He had asked his friends about the Mad Woman.

“She is so mad, even the lepers shun her,” said one.

“If you go near her she spits on you and then you become just like her,” revealed another.

“They say she is a witch,” the postman Gopal had told him authoritatively. “She was stoned out of her village for turning children into pye-dogs. Now she sits there all day eating cockroaches and sucking the blood from rats. Be careful she doesn’t curse you. She cursed Nandu last week and he grew a boil on his backside so big he hasn’t been able to sit down since.”

Irfan and Ganesha approached cautiously.

The old woman appeared to be dozing, sitting cross-legged against the baked brick wall of the toilet hut in her rags, her uncombed mass of grey hair ballooning about her head, her face caked in layers of dirt and grime. Even in the odiferous setting a strong stench emanated from her, though this did not seem to put off the trio of wild pigs rooting around in the rubbish nearby.

Suddenly, loud voices sounded from around the corner.

Irfan shrank back instinctively into the lee of a burnt-out bullock shed opposite the latrines, Ganesha following him automatically.

As they watched, three boys in school uniform emerged into the plot.

Irfan recognised the uniform—it belonged to the International Baccalaureate school that had just opened locally, attracting the children of the newly wealthy to its roster.

“What did I tell you?” said a tall boy who seemed to be leading the pack. “There she is.”

“Is she really mad?” asked the pudgy specimen bringing up the rear.

“You bet she is. You know she’s a witch, don’t you?”

The pudgy boy gulped, and pushed his spectacles up his nose. “Then shouldn’t we leave her alone?”

“Grow a backbone, you mouse,” muttered the tall boy. He looked around and picked up a bamboo cane. Stepping forward, he poked the woman in the ribs. “Hey, get up, you!”

The woman stirred to life, opening eyes encrusted with dirt and mucus. She blinked at the boys, but said nothing.

“What are you doing here, eh?” asked the tall boy.

“Wait! We should just leave her be,” protested a slim boy carrying a satchel. “My dad said we should be kind to poor people.”

“Balls to your dad!” exploded the tall boy. “And balls to poor people. They just clutter up the place, making the whole area look like a tip. What are they good for, anyway? Begging and stealing, that’s what.” He turned back to the Mad Woman. “We don’t want you around here. Go on, get out.”

He punctuated his order by jabbing her again with the stick.

Without warning, her hand whipped out from beneath the rags, wrenched the stick from him, and flung it back. It clattered off the boy’s shins with a satisfying crack, and he collapsed to the ground with a yelp of pain.

“Rahul!” cried his friends, racing to his aid.

The boy staggered to his feet, vigorously rubbing his shins. “You saw her,” he ground out, “she attacked me. She’s insane.” He looked around, and picked up a rock.

“Rahul, wait!” said the slim boy in alarm. “Let’s just leave her here. She isn’t harming anyone.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Rahul, and flung the rock. It struck the woman on the side of her skull. She cried out, her hand rising to her head.

“Oh!” gasped the pudgy boy, as if astonished that his friend had actually thrown the missile.

Rahul grinned, and bent down for another. “I’ll show you, you old witch.”

“Stop it!”

The trio looked around to see Irfan and Ganesha standing before them.

“Who the hell are you?” said Rahul, frowning, rock clutched in his hand.

“You’d better not throw that,” warned Irfan.

“Or what, pipsqueak?” glared Rahul.

“You’ll be sorry.”

“I think it’s you who’ll be sorry,” the boy threatened, raising the rock.

Ganesha charged.

Rahul’s eyes widened in astonishment. He threw the rock but it bounced harmlessly off Ganesha’s hide as he steamed into the boy, knocking him backwards into the rubbish mound. His companions took one look and fled.

Eventually, Rahul extricated himself from the rubbish tip.

Gunk clung to him. Rotten mango pulp made his face glisten. At least, Irfan hoped it was mango pulp. The alternatives did not bear thinking about.

Rahul glared at the boy and the little elephant. “I’ve seen you around,” he growled. “I’ll see you again, one day.”

“I’ll be waiting,” said Irfan.

They watched as Rahul limped around the corner.

Irfan turned and looked at the Mad Woman.

Her eyes were wide open, staring straight ahead. Blood trickled from the wound on her skull, snaking down towards her chin, but she appeared not to notice. He realised that she no longer looked frightening. Just a sad old woman down on her luck. Irfan had slept on the streets himself, had known poverty and the pain of constant hunger, and the greater, more poignant pain of an irredeemably bleak future. He had suffered, and in that suffering had been tempered. But there had been times when he had prayed for help, prayed for a single ray of light in the darkness. His prayers had been answered in the shape of Chopra and Poppy, two good people whose kindness had shone in the empty desert of his former life.

He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and moved cautiously forward. “I’m going to wipe off the blood,” he said.

Her eyes stared ahead.

Taking this as a sign of assent, he dabbed away at her skull as Ganesha looked on with concern in his dewy eyes. “There,” he said finally. “Good as new.”

The woman had still not looked at him.

“My name is Irfan. This is Ganesha. He’s an elephant. We live in Poppy’s Restaurant. It’s not far from here. If you want I can get you something to eat.”

No answer.

“Why do you sit here all day? Next to the latrine? Isn’t there somewhere else for you to go? Anywhere is better than here, surely.”

Silence.

“Those boys might come back. If I were you, I would find somewhere else to sit.”

Nothing.

“Well, we must leave now,” said Irfan. He looked thoughtfully at the woman. “You know, a friend of mine told me that when people go into themselves they are searching for something. I hope you find whatever it is you are looking for.”

Finally, her head moved.

Her eyes wandered around his face, not settling, then she raised a hand and searched the air.

That was when Irfan realised that the Mad Woman was blind.

The realisation shook him, and he felt indescribably sad that he had thought of her as a crazy old witch. It taught him once again that one must never be too quick to judge.

He lowered his face and felt the woman’s coarse fingers move over him. Then her hand dropped back to her lap. Suddenly, Ganesha moved forward. He raised his trunk and gently brushed the woman’s face.

She sat still as he examined her.

When he had finished, tears glistened on her cheeks.

“Why are you crying?” asked Irfan. “He was just being friendly.”

The woman said nothing, weeping silently, head bowed.

Finally, she hitched her shoulders.

“My name is Usha,” she said. “Once upon a time I used to be a teacher.”

Chopra pulled the Tata Venture into the deserted car park of the Goldspot Cinema and checked his watch. He knew that Poppy would be annoyed, but there was one last errand he had to run before he could return home and sit down to dinner with the Malhotras.

He swung himself out of the van’s front seat and stood staring up at the dilapidated façade of the cinema, a burst of nostalgia warming his heart.

The Goldspot had been a fixture of his youth. As a bachelor he had been inspired by his first action-packed Bachchan blockbusters here; later, as a married man, he and Poppy had come to the cinema—with its sooty exterior and tatty Rexine seats, its cracked plaster mouldings and velvet curtains, its odour of incense and bubblegum—to watch the screen come alive with the greatest romances of the age, Poppy squeezing his hand, held shyly in the dark… It had been their special place, and it pained him to see it humbled, brought low by the multiplexes that had spread like wildfire around the city. He knew that the Goldspot was locked in a long-standing dispute with the local authorities who wished to demolish it and raise a shopping centre on the site. But the owner, seventy-year-old Cyrus Dinshaw, had dug in his heels and refused to sell.

Chopra strolled past the ticket clerk asleep in his booth, and made his way into the darkened interior.

A black-and-white movie was showing: the Dev Anand classic Guide. Spidery lines jumped across the screen; the picture jerked fitfully between the moth-eaten curtains like a man caught in a nightmare.

Chopra made his way up a flight of narrow wooden steps, lined with old movie playbills from the sixties and seventies, to the projection room, where he found his friend Cyrus Dinshaw examining a section of old film stock under a magnifying glass. Beside him the ancient Leica two-reel projector whirred and clacked like a steam train.

Cyrus had steadfastly refused to bow to the new gods of digital technology, another reason his customer base had steadily dwindled. It was also the reason Chopra continued to frequent the cinema—he and Cyrus agreed on this at least.

“Take a look at this, Chopra,” grunted Cyrus without looking up.

Chopra bent over the old man’s shoulder, looking past his balding dome to the strip of 35mm film, a series of black-and-white negatives of a scene involving two actresses that he recognised, screen legends both.

“Cellulose nitrate,” continued Cyrus. “They stopped making this back in the fifties. The stock had a tendency to catch fire and explode. Very temperamental stuff, cellulose. I got this batch from an old collector. He died a couple of weeks ago and his wife wanted to clear out the junk. Junk! Hah!” He raised a hoary head and fixed Chopra with a bayonet glare. “Now, what can I do for you?”

Chopra dragged over a wooden chair and sat before Cyrus, watching him work.

The old man was a rabid collector of knowledge about the movie industry. It was from Cyrus that he’d first learned how the Russians utterly adored the great Raj Kapoor. It was from Cyrus that he’d learned that kissing had been done away with in Indian cinema as part of the freedom struggle, a protest against the spread of British values. It was from Cyrus that he’d learned that the incomparable writing duo of Salim–Javed, despairing of the lack of recognition for scriptwriters in Bollywood, had once gone out in a rickshaw with a pot of red paint and painted their names on all the posters for their latest film. “Of course, the rumour mill said they loathed each other. They used to salt each other’s tea, and fight tooth and nail over every line they wrote.” He seemed to know every snippet of gossip going; given that he appeared never to leave the projection room of his beloved theatre, Chopra surmised he must be straining such information from the very air.

“I’m on a case—” Chopra began.

“How’s that elephant of yours?” interrupted Cyrus. “Discerning little fellow, as I recall.”

The last time Chopra had ventured to the Goldspot, Ganesha had accompanied him, and won Cyrus over by sitting glaze-eyed through the entire length of the old maverick’s Guru Dutt collection.

The movie bug had bitten Ganesha deeply, to Chopra’s mild annoyance.

“Still in love with the silver screen,” said Chopra. “Which, as a matter of fact, is the reason I am here.”

Quickly, he explained the case that he was investigating. He knew that Cyrus could be trusted to be discreet—who would he tell, anyway? The old widower had almost no friends and rarely left his beloved cinema. “I need to know more about P. K. Das. What can you tell me?”

Cyrus leaned back in his chair. “One of our foremost producers—he’s made some of the most successful films of the past forty years. He built Himalayan Studios up from nothing to one of the biggest production houses in the country. He’s won just about every award imaginable. As far as anyone is aware he is a shining light of our cultural heritage, a grand old patron of the arts, an all-round good egg… Pah!”

“Pah?”

“It’s the movie business, Chopra. Nothing is quite what it seems. There have been rumours for decades. Das is a notoriously ruthless character. He rules his productions with an iron fist and has been known to sink careers without a trace, to resort to blackmail and intimidation, anything to get his way. Over the years this has made him many enemies. But you know what they say: who needs friends when you have success? And Das has had a great deal of success. Frankly, just two short years ago, he was standing on top of the mountain. He had nothing left to prove and could happily have sailed off into retirement, rich and feted till his dying day.”

“But something happened.”

“The Mote in the Third Eye of Shiva happened. This movie has been Das’s white whale for two decades. He could never get it off the ground because of the vast expense involved. It was only after the unprecedented success of his past three movies that he was able to get enough backers on board.” Cyrus scratched his chin. “Das has sunk everything into this project. His studio is mortgaged up to the hilt. He’s borrowed from every bank in the city. And it still wasn’t enough. The rumour is that he has taken money from the underworld.” He shook his head sadly. “We’re back to the bad old days of the eighties. Do you remember that?”

Chopra did remember.

For decades the Indian government had refused to officially recognise the movie industry, effectively blocking producers from legitimate sources of funding. Inevitably, this let in the unscrupulous agents of the city’s organised criminal gangs. The combination of glamour and a chance to launder dirty money via financially opaque movie productions was too tempting. In time, the underworld dons began to call the shots, and attacks on producers, directors, and actors who refused to toe the line became commonplace. Chopra himself had investigated more than one case of extortion and blackmail, and even a broad-daylight shooting of a well-known producer, which had blown the lid on the whole sorry affair.

Many believed those dark days were behind the industry, yet it seemed Das had so far overreached himself that he had had to go back to the poisoned well.

Chopra’s thoughts fastened on Mr. Pyarelal, the thug-like individual he had encountered at Film City. It seemed altogether probable that Pyarelal was representing whichever crime outfit Das had got into bed with, there to keep an eye on their investment.

“Let’s assume you’re correct,” said Chopra. “Why would this outfit kidnap Vicky? Why would they jeopardise the production? If they’ve sunk money into it, then aiding its collapse will lose them everything. It makes no sense.”

A silence fell between them as they considered the matter, broken only by the chattering of the projector.

“I can tell you why they may have taken Vicky,” Cyrus announced at last. “In one word: insurance. It’s a relatively new practice, but as the costs of the big-budget productions have skyrocketed, producers have been investing to protect themselves against the vagaries of fate. After all, if you’ve just pumped one hundred million rupees into a film riding on the shoulders of Salman Khan, what chance have you got if something happens to him? My guess is that with costs racking up the way they are on Das’s cursed project, his more unscrupulous backers have decided that the only way for them to recover their money is to bring the whole thing down on its head. I’m sure if you get hold of the insurance papers you’ll see a kidnap-and-murder clause. It’s standard practice these days. In the event of Vicky Verma’s disappearance there’ll be an enormous payout, you mark my words. And it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Das is in on the whole thing. He’s a man gambling in the last-chance saloon.” He sighed. “The terrible thing is that the whole scheme only works if Vicky never comes back.”

As Chopra settled down to dinner with the Malhotras this stark warning sat uneasily in his stomach. If his old friend was correct, then Vicky’s life was in even greater danger than he had suspected.

“Something on your mind, Chopra?”

Chopra looked up from his contemplation of the Madras lamb curry before him.

Gulshan Malhotra, an amiable, middle-aged English literature teacher from Poppy’s school, peered at him through round-framed spectacles.

“No, nothing in particular,” said Chopra, more gruffly than he intended. He realised that he was being an ungracious host. The Malhotras—Gulshan, and his wife, Sudha, who also worked at St. Xavier—were perfectly pleasant people, good-natured and articulate. They had taken on the conversational load, deftly filling in the potholes left by Chopra’s maudlin silences. Poppy, dressed in an eye-watering mustard-coloured sari, dark hair popped up in a topknot, cheeks flushed from the kitchen—or, possibly, Chopra suspected, from the high level of spice in the curry—had flashed him the odd look of mild irritation.

He felt a sudden sense of chagrin.

This was a special occasion for his wife. They rarely had dinner guests, and this was the first time Poppy had invited over colleagues from her workplace. Indeed, this was the first real job Poppy had ever had. For most of her life she had been content to manage her home while pursuing various social and charitable causes, but now, in thrall to her idol Sunita Shetty’s vision of the Modern Indian Woman, Poppy had finally joined the rat race.

After twenty-four years of marriage, Chopra knew that his wife was an incurable romantic. She had a generous nature and a heart as wide as an ocean, yet she was quick to anger and could take offence at the slightest insult. It was one of the things he had grown to love about her.

He cleared his throat. “Actually, you’re right. I apologise for being preoccupied. It’s a case I am currently investigating within the movie industry. I cannot reveal the details—and I must ask you to keep this in confidence—but I have been engaged by Bijli Verma.”

This pricked up everyone’s ears. Malhotra leaned forward. “Well, that’s quite a coup for your agency, I’ll bet. You know, I’ve always loved the pictures. I came to Bombay as a young man determined to become an actor. I was a big fan of old Bollywood, especially Raj Kapoor. I still remember the first time I saw Awaara, when he unveiled his lovable Chaplinesque ‘little tramp.’ What a movie!” Stars shone in his eyes. “So what’s Bijli gotten herself into, then?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say, but she’s in genuine trouble.”

“Hmm. Well, she’s always courted controversy. Do you remember after the 2008 terror attacks, she came out and made a big noise about right-wing fundamentalists operating in the city? There was one outfit, in particular, that swore to make her eat her words. Led by some rogue radical, if I remember, a scoundrel disowned by all the regular Muslim institutions in the city. A real fire-and-brimstone character. It’s a pity he vanished into the woodwork before the police got to him.”

Later, as he helped Poppy load the dishes into their new dishwasher, Chopra dwelled on Malhotra’s words. He recalled the furore in the papers at the time but, with the storm of news around the attacks, the death threat had quickly died its own death. It seemed hard to believe that the individual in question had resurfaced years later to carry out that threat, by kidnapping Bijli’s son.

“You’re overworking yourself again, aren’t you?”

Chopra smiled at his wife. She stood, hands on hips, head tilted to one side, examining him with her dark, quick eyes. There was no one who knew him better, who cared for his welfare more fervently. And the same was true of his feelings for her, though he was decidedly more sober in his expression of those sentiments. His wife was a kingfisher, he had always felt, loud and iridescent; whereas Chopra thought of himself as more of a crow: dark, sombre, and willing to stay in the shadows.

“I’m trying not to,” he said. “But—”

“But the weight of the world somehow keeps landing on your shoulders.” Poppy smiled ruefully. “And here was I thinking after retirement I would see more of you, not less!”

Chopra hesitated. He wanted to tell Poppy that he missed her, that he wished his life—both their lives—were not so busy. But there was that nagging sense of responsibility that had always been his greatest asset and his greatest curse. “I could always close the detective agency,” he mumbled.

Poppy stared at him, then tipped back her head to unleash a gale of tinkling laughter. “You said that as if someone had told you to shave your moustache.” She leaned forward and hugged him. “In all these years I have never asked you to be anyone other than yourself. And I never will. Just remember, I need you too. If the only way to spend time with you is to engage your services as a detective, then so be it. I shall have to find a suitable mystery for you to solve.”

Chopra smiled. “How about the mysterious case of how to convince Irfan to accept your efforts to educate him?”

Poppy smiled. “I know you don’t think I should push him, but it’s for his own good.”

“I wonder if he knows that? He’s got along fine without it so far. It’s going to take a lot for him to change his mind.”

“Well, I’m responsible for him now,” said Poppy firmly. “And it just so happens that I’m very good at changing people’s minds.”

“Okay, okay. I surrender!” Chopra grinned. “Perhaps an easier problem for me to solve might be the mystery of the overspiced curry.”

Poppy frowned. “You know, I thought it was a little hot today. It must be that jar of pickle you brought home with you.”

Chopra looked at her in alarm. “You added that to the curry?”

“Shouldn’t I have?”

Chopra paled. “Didn’t you tell me Malhotra has a delicate constitution? I hope the poor man knows a good doctor. Either that or a priest.”