‘I can hope. I have compelled her to notice me. I am not the kind of suitor whom that family would ever consider for their daughter. Their aspirations are higher. They have such pride, they are so arrogant. It’s just my status in life … too humble for them. Yet, what does she say in these letters? Isn’t it attraction to me, as a lover …. I pass by the house everyday. She is dressed, ready, waiting for me. I have glimpsed her, once, twice …. Perfection. Who would not desire her? Her creamy complexion, wavy hair. That air of innocent playfulness.

‘She wears flowers in her hair. Garlands of jasmines, half-opened buds …. I know what people are saying—there’s this big proposal for her. A wealthy suitor. Drives me crazy to think that that’s what they will ultimately go for. As for myself? Who will think of me as a suitable husband for their daughters? I come from a good family … from the North. We have our lands there, paddy, palmyrah groves, the family house in the village where we have lived for generations. But here, in the city, values are different. This backroom is all the space I have in the house of my relatives. They live their lives, I, mine, I suppose I must be thankful. I don’t earn very much as a bank clerk and I send money home, to the North, for my aged parents, for my sisters’ dowries. These young girls in the city … they are somehow different. Their parents had left the ancestral villages so long ago. They only go back for the temple festivals at Nallur, Sellachannadhi, Mavattipuram, or for holidays in their houses by the sea. The young women wait for marriage. They’re all pent up, waiting for their bridegrooms. Nothing to do with their lives. Idling away their days. Locked up. No going out without chaperones, the old women with eagle eyes. But I know, I know what’s going on in their minds.

‘Renga tells me of their longings, their desires. He brings me their letters, takes them the gifts I send. The girls sit together, chat, eyeing the chocolates, the sweets I send them—laddus and ghee-rich Mysore pak. Oh yes, I’ve seen those ardent looks …. Those flowers in their hair, the crimson tilaks on their foreheads, those large bindis—they aren’t for the gods only. They go to the temple every Friday, during Deepavali, Mahashivarathri and worship, pray, sing thevarams, make vows, pray, pray, pray, for husbands with the aspects of the gods …. In their fervour they imagine the gods stepping down from their pedestals and walking with them round the sacred yaham …