Keeping the home fires burning

Well, darling, are you missing me?" my wife asks. "No," I say, really because no husband minds a reprieve of a few days, but mostly because the dog nestles in the crook of my arm, snoring lightly into my ear while sprawled across the bed - so what's to miss? Of course, he needs to be taken down for a constitutional at midnight, something my wife hasn't requested yet, but who's to know what the future holds. Not that she's averse to being away on her own, having spent more weeks outside Delhi than in. "Be a sweetheart and see to the bills," she says, which is unfair because it's her turn to write the cheques, and once taken care of we'll never get round to settling accounts, and next month it'll be my turn to pay anyway.

"Do you miss your mum?" I ask the kids. "Mum, who?" says my daughter, but really, she's only kidding, they're on Facebook and update each other regularly on everything from what're they're wearing to what they're doing, accompanied by pictures to boot. My wife thanks me for not being on the social site, she can do without my sarcastic remarks, she says. I'm more concerned she'd "unfriend" me, and how would that look - it's nobody's case that anyone should air their dirty laundry in public, even though that's what Sarla seems to do.

My wife's best friend keeps a record of all our common friends and who was invited to Padma's 50th birthday, or wasn't; who got to go to Amit's penthouse-warming, or didn't; who formed part of the group on the extended weekend trip to Thailand, or didn't. Sarla is currently an "unfriend", yet she knows that the weekend before my wife went out of town we'd hosted a small dinner party. "That's where Jeev and Jiya caught a stomach bug," she'd posted on her account. "I'll have to make up with her," my wife sighs, "she's ruining my reputation as a hostess."

Of course, that might have to wait till she's back, which might be this week, or next, she isn't sure, her social calendar is full of people she's having lunches and dinner with, "even high-tea", she exclaims, as if that's reason enough to keep from returning. "I love you, sweetie," she says, "but home is so boring." She's probably right, I don't see the kids all that much either. Our daughter has a social set larger even than her mother's and is forever "hanging out" at some lounge or pub, or going for a friend's birthday, or arranging a "shopping sleepover" at which a group of girls apparently spend the night modelling and commenting on each other's clothes. "It's so much fun," my daughter says. I tell her it's a nesting ground for future Sarlas.

Our son is delighted there's no one at home to ask him if the girl he spoke with on the phone, went out to dinner with, met at a friend's, or asked over for a drink is "someone serious", someone he might want to "settle down with", someone for whom his mother might consider cutting her trip short. "Mom," he says over the phone, on the rare occasion he's fooled into taking her call, "you stay away as long as you like, there's nothing for you to worry about here." "I feel sorry for your dad," she tells him, "he must get lonely." "Don't you fret about him," our son assures his mother, "he's got the dog for company, hasn't he?"