Bring coriander. Not the sad one from downstairs.
Tanya booked an auto and spent the ride checking guesthouse reviews.
One guest praised the breakfast and complained about geckos. Another had given one star because the sea was “too noisy at night.” Tanya sent the review to the group.
Rhea: We should demand quieter ocean.
Naina: Guesthouse deposit becomes non-refundable tomorrow.
Meher: Booking tonight. Tanya please check safety/location once more.
There it was: Tanya’s official role. Meher planned, Naina calculated, Rhea provoked and Tanya prevented death.
She checked the map again.
Their friendship had begun in Class Seven at a school in South Delhi. Rhea had argued with the science teacher about marks. Meher had redesigned the noticeboard without permission. Naina had collected money for chart paper and produced exact change. Tanya had corrected the spelling of environment in the heading, earning Meher’s lifelong gratitude and Rhea’s immediate suspicion.
They had remained together through subject selections, university entrance results, first jobs, bad bosses, unsuccessful diets, one almost-engagement, three breakups and the repeated discovery that adulthood contained far more email than advertised.
They knew one another too well in some directions and not at all in others.
The auto stopped outside the Sachdevas’ building in Lajpat Nagar. Tanya climbed two flights of stairs because the lift had been “under modernisation” since Diwali. Inside the flat, the air smelled of cumin and fried onions.
Her father sat at the dining table with three printed sheets arranged before him.
“I printed your itinerary,” Rajiv Sachdeva said.
Tanya put down the coriander. “Why?”
“For reference.”
She looked at the first page.
THE SHARMAS’ GOLDEN GOA ANNIVERSARY — FIVE DAYS OF TOGETHERNESS
“Papa, this is for a family from Pune.”
Rajiv adjusted his glasses. “The link opened this.”
“What link?”
“The one your mother forwarded.”
Sunita Sachdeva appeared from the kitchen carrying tea and innocence.
“I only wanted to see the hotel,” she said.
“We haven’t booked this hotel.”
“Good. Reviews mention plumbing.”
“You both searched the internet using a stranger’s anniversary itinerary.”
Rajiv tapped the paper. “Their flight times are convenient.”
Tanya sat opposite him. “We already booked flights.”
“Send me the details.”
“They’re in the family group.”
“Too many good-morning messages. Important information gets lost.”
Sunita placed a cup of tea before Tanya and lowered the television volume. The movement was small but official. Casual parental conversation was about to begin, which meant nothing about it would be casual.
“Four girls alone?” Sunita asked.
“Four adult women together.”
“That is what I said.”
“No, you said it like we are being released into a forest.”
“Goa has forests.” Rajiv examined the wrong itinerary. “And tell me the taxi number when you get it.”
“I will.”
“Hotel landline.”
“Guesthouse.”
“Then guesthouse landline.”
“Papa, it is 2026.”
“Emergencies do not care about the year.”
Sunita pushed the plate of biscuits toward her. “Do not take drinks from strangers.”
“What if the stranger is a waiter?”
“Don’t be clever.”
“What if the waiter introduces himself?”
“Tanya.”
She smiled into her tea.
Her parents were not especially strict by the standards of their world. Rajiv worried in spreadsheets. Sunita asked questions designed like traps but rarely locked a door. They trusted Tanya because she had spent years producing trustworthy evidence: good marks, steady work, predictable hours, no public disasters.
Their trust created a peculiar kind of guilt. Open rebellion would have been easier. Instead Tanya edited.
Yes, they would visit churches and markets. She omitted clubs.
Yes, the guesthouse had excellent reviews. She omitted the review praising its walking distance from nightlife.
Yes, she would try swimming. She omitted the red bikini waiting in her shopping cart.
“We will probably be too tired to go out much,” she said.
Somewhere in the moral universe, an unreliable narrator received her wings.
On Saturday, the four women met at a café in Connaught Place for the official planning summit.
Meher Bedi arrived first in a beige trouser suit despite the heat, placed her laptop on the table and asked the waiter for the Wi-Fi password before saying hello. At twenty-six, she was a brand strategist at a multinational company in Gurugram and could turn any human activity into a campaign. She had once described her breakup as “a necessary repositioning.”
Naina Arora arrived next, wearing a navy dress and carrying a cross-body bag containing a charger, tissues, antacid, two pens and financial judgment. She worked as a relationship manager at a private bank, a title that had disappointed Rhea when she learned the relationships involved money rather than romance.
Rhea Malhotra came eleven minutes late and entered like the café had delayed her. She was twenty-seven, a junior litigation lawyer, and dressed in black even when weather and occasion objected. Rhea did not express opinions. She filed them.
Tanya arrived last because Mrs Suri had called about an optional holiday activity that became compulsory during the conversation.
“Quorum,” Rhea announced. “Begin crimes.”
“Itinerary first,” Meher said.
She connected her laptop to a portable mini-projector.
Tanya stared. “Did you bring presentation equipment to a café?”
“We need to see the route.”
“We have phones.”
“Phones are why civilisation is losing alignment.”
The first slide appeared on the white wall behind Naina.
GOA 2026: RECLAIMING OUR TWENTIES
Beneath the title were four words: Freedom. Friendship. Flexibility. Photographs.
Rhea raised her hand. “Question. Why are we reclaiming a decade we are currently inside?”
“Because work has stolen the usable portion.”
“Objection withdrawn.”
Meher clicked to the itinerary.
“Day one: arrive, transfer, check-in, nearby beach, relaxed dinner.”
“Define relaxed,” Naina said.
“No reservation.”
“That is not relaxed. That is operational risk.”
“Day two: beach, café exploration, optional shack evening. Day three: Panjim and Old Goa. Day four—”
“You have scheduled spontaneous sunset,” Tanya said.
Meher looked at the slide. “Only the time. The sunset itself will be organic.”
Rhea leaned toward Naina. “Our friend is ill.”
“The split is approximately twenty-two thousand each before food and nightlife,” Naina said, opening her spreadsheet. “Imported alcohol is separate. Personal shopping is separate. Anyone who changes flights pays the difference. I am not subsidising personality.”
“My personality contributes atmosphere,” Rhea said.
“Your personality ordered a bottle at my birthday and forgot her wallet.”
“Counsel was emotionally occupied.”
Tanya laughed. This was the part she had wanted without admitting it: not Goa specifically, but a week in which the four of them existed in the same place long enough to become foolish together again.
Their adult lives had reduced friendship to scheduled evidence—birthdays, brunches, crisis calls, weddings belonging to other people. In school they had known everything: who had failed mathematics, whose parents were fighting, which boy had looked twice during assembly. Now entire months passed in voice notes.
Rhea placed a yellow legal pad on the table.
“Holiday crimes.”
“Call them holiday plans,” Tanya said.
“Plans have accountability.”
“We are not committing crimes,” Naina said.
“That depends on what Meher wears.”
Meher did not look up. “Jealousy is not legal analysis.”
Rhea read the list aloud. Loud dancing. Bold clothes. Talking to strangers. Ordering drinks without calculating calories. No checking professional profiles before flirting. No asking what a man’s parents did before knowing what he did.