Her father-in-law would sit in the living room on the ground floor watching news all day and her mother-in-law watched serials and cookery shows in her bedroom on the first floor, with the volume turned to maximum.

I thought she was looking for an excuse not to return, so she had come up with this flimsy one.

Now, every single day I thought of her and felt how terribly judgmental I had been, not for once trying to understand the quandary she was in. Because I was in a similar situation now.

I didn't know my work-from-home life after I moved to Calcutta from Singapore would become a daily struggle. After my Chhoto Mashi finished her loud phone calls to relatives and friends, who never came to see her for once, she would turn on the TV in a high volume in the living room. Then the bickering with my mother would start. Their choice of serials, or of anything else in life, never matched.

My Chhoto Mashi hated , my mother loved it, so it was prepared three times a week in our home. My Chhoto Mashi loved and my mother hated it. On occasions she got our cook Rani to buy it exclusively for her, my mother refused to touch it and made it clear to her sister that such a lowly fish should not be prepared in "her" home.

Every evening the wrangling over the TV channel would reach a point when my mother would march into my room, look at the faces on Google Meet on my laptop screen with a customary nonchalance and would just switch on the TV, without payng any heed to the fact that I was in an online meeting. I knew no effort on my part would make her leave the room, so I would quickly turn the video off, make it mute and walk out with my laptop to my parents' room.

I could have moved the TV from my room to theirs but my father was strictly against the idea. It would interrupt his ruminations or dozing sessions he believed. Neither did my Chhoto Mashi want a TV in her room because her son had told her that a TV should not be kept in the bedroom. She followed his advice diligently.

If my father was out on his regular walks or was at the community sports room playing table tennis, then I could be in that room for some time balancing myself on the edge of the bed and placing my laptop on my lap. I hoped my meeting would get over by the time he came back. If he had played table tennis and had a lot of people appreciating his agility at 82, then he would be in a good mood.

He would "allow" me to sit there a bit longer, even say very sweetly, "Sit! Sit! Finish your work. Ma and Chhoto Mashi must be disturbing you a lot."

If his mood wasn't at its best, he would pick up an old sports magazine and start reading it loudly, making it clear that my intrusion was not welcome.

My father's mood swings could be compared to the - he wouldn't even give you time to realise when that smiling face had developed a clench at the jaw, then depending on the intensity of the clouds he would either come up with a drizzle or it could be a full-blown hailstorm. His voice would reach such decibels that the neighbours would fear that he would come to blows. He never did.

My mother and I had always been at the receiving end of his anger. My mother had learned to counter it by shouting even louder, but I always slung away like a scared dog with her tail between her legs.

When I was a child, my father came back from work at 5pm every day; not a minute earlier, not a minute later. My mother would flutter around him like a devoted butterfly, bringing him a wet towel to wipe away the sweat, followed by , then fresh clothes, then food and finally a cup of Darjeeling tea.

It had been drummed into my head since the day I was born that when my father came home, I should be at my best behaviour.

"He works hard all day to give us a good life. When he comes home you should never disturb him Reyna," my mother always said.

Now that logic did not apply to me. I was working hard all day to keep things together. I was the breadwinner, but I got shoved around from one room to another till I found some solace in the balcony. I tried to tell myself that I was lucky to have a balcony with a view of the community pool, where I could sit and work. Despite all the challenges I had been faced with since my return, I tried very hard to keep counting my blessings. Women were fighting tougher battles than me, I told myself.

From where I was sitting on the balcony, I could see Rishit's car rolling in through the main gate. In the morning, I had sent him a cryptic message about Anish's wife Chandana being spotted at his wedding. I didn't think he would rush to my home immediately. I quickly closed the laptop. I was wearing a formal shirt on my pyjamas for the online meeting. Looking a bit like a mismatched oaf, I took the lift.

In our old house in Hindustan Park, we had two elevated sitting spaces on either side of our main door, called a . That was the only space that allowed some privacy from the prying ears at home. Rishit and I sat there huddled on one and shared our secrets.

We sat by the pool now. I still had to step outside my home looking for privacy, only the had become a bench with a pool view.

Rishit was sitting next to me, looking at his shoes with that guilty look. He had looked in the same way a few months back when I was joking about Anish. I didn't notice it then, now I knew why.

I was ready to deal with another betrayal, but since it was Rishit, my best friend for 30 long years, I wanted to lend him an ear before I jumped to conclusions.

"Chandana is your cousin, right?" I asked.

"Yes," he said feebly.

"That was why she was at your wedding…"

"Yes, that was actually why Anish was invited. He was invited because of her," said Rishit.

Nothing surprised me any more.

"From when did you know about them? From when have you been in touch with Anish?" I asked.

"About seven years back I came to know about them. But I was not in touch with him, I swear Reyna. I was never in touch with him. Chandana's parents had disowned her when she ran away from home. It is only recently they reconciled with her because she wanted to come back to them, and they are ageing now. This happened just before my wedding. This was when Anish got in touch with me and asked for my help," said Rishit.

"Help for what…" I asked a bit puzzled. Then it struck me.

"Has he asked you for money as well to pay off his alimony? He's asking me for that."

"Really? He's asked you for money too." Rishit looked at me wide-eyed.

"Did you give him money?" he now asked with an urgency.

"I know you guys think me to be a fool, but I am trying to understand what you guys are up to first. If you knew where Anish was, about his wife and child, and you didn't tell me for seven long years, then I really need to question my own judgement about friends."

"You were settled in Singapore, I felt you had finally moved on. I did not want to disrupt your life. I didn't want to pull you back into the dark hole again."

"Fair enough," I said with a smile.

"What kind of a distant cousin is Chandana to you?" I asked.

"My maternal grandfather had married twice. My mom has three half-brothers with whom she was not in touch for a long time. Chandana is the daughter of her eldest half-brother, so technically my ," he said.

What he said next left me in a state of shock.

"And it was through me Anish met Chandana," Rishit revealed.