An excerpt from

Recovering Rude
by Rana Bose

One day Nistaran Babu huffed and puffed up the stairs and dropped himself on to the couch. Disaster struck immediately. The springs, having been recently overhauled, were ship-shape and immediately flung him in an upward direction. His upward climb was interrupted by a low-hanging, rose-red glass lampshade that hung above the couch. The lampshade shattered on impact. Shards flew from this inexpensive shade and distributed themselves all over the living room floor. But Nistaran Babu had already unleashed his tea-growl on Ananta, who true to the servile act he always put on in front of such personalities, had already walked in with a tray, tea and Trinca's pastries. One of the shards, as if on cue, penetrated Ananta's bare sole and he had no option but to fling boiling tea and pastries onto Nistaran Babu's lap, who had by now suppressed the pulsating spring into submission. However, the impact of hot tea on a big lap is immediate and Nistaran Babu, in a reactive sweep of his large hands, flung the pastries and china onto the ground. Gola, my sister's golden cocker spaniel, immediately appeared on the scene, picked up a pastry and crawled under a divan. At this point, my mother joined the chaos in a half-authoritative manner and unleashed her temper on Ananta for conspiting to feed Gola in an unconventional manner, with the forbidden, greasy, creamy pastry which would cause his fur to fall out and eventually lead to his death by diabetes mellitus. Therefore, Ananta, despite the shard in his sole, attempted to crawl under the divan to retreive the pastry from Gola's mouth. The spaniel, though, had no intention of cooperating on this issue and only bared his teeth with murderous contempt from the farthest end of the divan.