Sir PM was seated in his favourite bench inside the Horniman Circle Gardens. It offered him a 360-degree view of the grandeur of the architecture that graced him from all sides – St Thomas Cathedral, the Asiatic Society building and the fine assemblage of facades that constituted Horniman Circle. ‘It’s been a while since I met Lady Flora, thanks to this wretched pandemic and the guidelines,’ he thought to himself as he sipped on his milky chai from a flask and brun maska that the missus had packed for both of them. It was one of those rare breezy evenings in May, and the solitude of the surroundings relaxed him. The partial lockdown gave him plenty of time to do justice to the books that had collected dust on his bookshelf. He and Lady Flora had hardly met and he was clearly missing the weekly gupshup.

Too much for city to bear

As soon as both of them had got their second dose of the vaccination, they decided to catch up. “Pheroze, you’ve got a few more strands of grey, I see!” shrieked Lady Flora. She did a little jig as she approached him, and was itching to give him a hug. But this was the new normal, and restraint was crucial. Sipping on the chai that Sir PM offered her, her voice had a positive lilt to it, despite wearing the mask: “This feels so good. What a past month it’s been, Pheroze. I mean, with the rising cases, the stubborn new strain, and as if we needed more grief, the killer cyclone. Bombay had its hands full…” It felt like ages since she had last discussed their beloved city with her friend. “And yet, thanks to so many visionaries and people of action [and not just words], we have been able to see the back of, which I dearly hope, are some of our worst days of the pandemic,” Sir PM continued.