[Exit: Naveen. Anasuya comes out from the kitchen portion with a plastic cover containing the leftovers.]
Anasuya: Amma, you are lucky to have such a husband
Navya: How is your man, is he keeping his word to give up drinking.
Anasuya: He is drinking more than ever. Why, he says that he won’t be able to drink once he stops drinking.
Navya: That is some logic, isn’t it? [Navya laughs heartily.]
Anasuya: I don’t know amma what to do with him. But when sober there is no man like him.
[Exit: Anasuya. Navya goes into the kitchen. Navya re-enters and goes to the master bedroom. In time, two chimes of the clock (not in the scene) and Navya comes out from the children’s bed room (the right side of the backstage) and goes into the kitchen portion. Navya reappears wiping her hands with the palluof her saree and goes into the master bedroom. Thereafter, the clock chimes thrice and Navya comes out of the master bedroom and picks up ‘The Hindu’ lying on the centre table. Shortly Ranjan and Nrupa with tired looks and bag loads of school books enter.]
Nrupa: I’m hungry mummy.
Navya: Go have a wash; I shall prepare some garam garam upma for both of you.
[Ranjan and Nrupa go into the children’s bedroom and Navya into the kitchen portion. Navya reappears with two platefuls of upmaand goes into the children’s bedroom. Shortly Navya comes into the drawing room with a carom board with Ranjan (holding a box of coins) and Nrupa. Navya spreads the board and as the kids set the coins they converse.]
Ranjan: After Nritya comes we can play doubles every day?
Nrupa: I shall be her partner.
Ranjan: She no fool for that.
[Ranjan and Nrupa come to blows and Navya intervenes.]
Navya: She is not going to stay with us anyway.
Nrupa: But where she will stay?
Navya: In Rachana auntie’s ladies hostel.
Ranjan: Why not she stays with us, mummy.
Navya: It’s better that way.
Nrupa: But how?
Navya: You are too young to understand all that now.
[They get along for a while with the game of carom bank (In the first round, each player keeps the coins he pockets and that makes his bank. While the red is priced at Rs. 5, the whites and blacks are valued at Rs. 2 and Rs.1 respectively. In the second round each player stakes equal money on the board and the process is repeated till a winner emerges.) Six chimes of the clock (not in the scene) and they wind up the show without a clear winner and go into the children’s bedroom. Shortly, Navya appears in the drawing room and picks up a periodical and sits in the sofa. Thereafter Ranjan and Nrupa too come out with a couple of shuttle cocks and their racquets.]