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anything be further from this dear old house with its water-stained plaster walls, the banyan saplings growing between cracks in the terrace bricks? When Rajat drives me from the crooked alleys of North Kolkata to check on the progress of the flat, I feel disoriented, like a time traveler.

    After the ceremony, at Pia’s insistence, the group gathers on the veranda overlooking the garden. Pia arranges everyone on chairs: Bimal and Sarojini in the center, Rajat and Korobi flanking them. (Boy-girl-boy-girl, Pia instructs.) Mr. and Mrs. Bose stand behind. Pia is a finicky photographer. People must angle their heads according to her dictates. They must either gaze into the distance, faces benevolent as buddhas, or look meaningfully into each other’s eyes. She tells the grandparents to hold hands; taken aback by her demand, they do as she says. Under the pretextof bringing lime sherbet and cashew nuts, the servants venture into the frame, for how can there be a family portrait without them? Pia lets them stay. An ice-cream man passes by the gate. The tinkle of his cart bell becomes part of the picture, as do the smells of the engagement lunch: cauliflower khichuri, sautéed pumpkin (Cook is given to sudden, wild improvisations), rice pudding sweetened with palm molasses, and, yes, scorched fish-fry.
    Pia will be particularly proud of this photograph. She will make her father mail copies to all their relatives, even those she will never meet. She will hang an enlargement in her family’s drawing room, next to their Jamini Roy original, despite her mother’s remonstrations. A copy will go on the first page of the new photo album that Rajat gave her, along with the camera. She will title it Happiness . Even after certain events come to pass and Mrs. Bose removes the enlargement from their wall, Pia will keep her copy. Late afternoons, when her mother thinks she is doing homework, she will remove the album from the back of her closet and run her fingers over the photograph, over the minuscule, innocent smiles fixed on the faces of her subjects.

    After lunch, the adults rest under the fan on the veranda. Grandmother passes around a crystal dish holding silvered cardamom seeds, specially ordered from Bara Bazaar, to freshen the breath. Pia disappears into the overgrown garden to take more photos. For the moment, Rajat and I have no further duties and are free to walk up and down the oleander drive.
    “Cara,” Rajat says, “there’s something I’ve been waiting to tell you. I’ve come up with an exciting idea for the business. I want you to know before I tell anyone else.”
    Rajat works for his father, managing orders, doing the accounting, handling the fancy clients. He’s been doing it for the last couple of months. He had another job before that, business development in a big multinational, but then his father needed him.
    “I want to start a website where customers can see the entire range of our products and buy them online. What do you think?”
    I don’t know much about websites—I’m studying history—but I’m touched that Rajat trusts me with his vulnerable, newborn vision. That he’s watching me with some anxiety, waiting for my verdict. It means more to me than all the love words he’s spoken.
    I reach for his hand. “It’s a wonderful idea.” We walk for a while that way, fingers clasped, too happy to need to speak.
    On the veranda, the men discuss politics. At another time, I’d be more interested, but right now, walking hand in hand with Rajat, I feel too complete to care much. Grandfather says that it’s a good thing our city’s name has finally been changed back to Kolkata from that anglicized version the British saddled us with. But Papa points out the change is costing the state millions of rupees because all the documentation has to match the new name. It’s more important to deal with the unrest in the city—there’s certainly been a lot of it lately. Remember last month when militants