A still from Lipstick Under My Burkha. Pic courtesy film’s official page on twitter

I outdid myself in the kitchen on Wednesday evening. I’m not the kind of person who usually pats herself on the back in public, but there really was something so oddly sublime about the way the mutton chops turned out. Perhaps it had something to do with the studied manner in which they had been marinated. Since I returned from Goa, I had one more weekend trip that kept me away from being “at home”, and was, therefore, lacking in foresight about my kitchen’s inventory. I didn’t realise I had run out of khus khus and peppercorns. I should also have ordered another packet of dahi beforehand. But since my best friend, Mandakini, who I’ve always called Mona, was coming home to dinner after aeons (we’ve otherwise been meeting at her place), and since I was using a self-cooked meal as the lure, I wanted the mutton chops I had bought from Mazzar, my butcher in CR Park’s Market Number 1, to be the star of the evening.