THE YEARS HAD passed. The garden had diminished. The leaves had not been swept and lay scattered where the wind had blown them. The araliya flowers lay strewn about beneath the trees, the smell of their wilting petals overwhelmingly sickly-sweet. The bird bath was empty of water. Radha felt a sense of oppression within the rooms of the locked house with its massed and heavy antique furniture which belonged to an epochal and alien civilization. The Victorian style furniture in the drawing room draped with its dust covers gave it an untenanted look. Years and years of living in the same house. How many years? Over fifty perhaps. Growing older each day and trying desperately to hold on to the joyousness of her youth.

Her veena, where was it? She hadn’t touched it for years. She tried singing a verse where the goddess describes Lord Shiva, the Destroyer and Creator:

Protection, promised, in hand uplifted
His arms adorned with hooded serpents
A tiger skin his garment,
The crescent moon in his hair,
His feet beautiful as the petal of the red lotus,
And anklets sounding music as He dances
His face alight with divinest compassion,
A third eye on his forehead.

Her voice had lost its musical quality. She had neglected to use that gift. Where was her veena? Nowhere to be seen. It must be in the storeroom, abandoned, dust-covered, in some corner. The house was silent. Her husband, Maharaj, was quietly dozing on the armchair. He had given her everything that a woman desired—expensive clothes, jewellery, cars, houses and estates. Whenever she wanted she could go on holidays abroad. He had not been like his father who had had mistresses, had even fathered children by them. Her own three sons were now grown up and living abroad. The house was filled with the sighs of emptiness.