Fifty years ago, she had been a young bride welcomed into the household of the Vigneshwerans. That man, the bank clerk, the gossip, the rumours, nothing had been able to mar the destined path she would take. She became an icon set in a niche of history. Women like Saradha served as grim warnings for those who transgressed the rules, those unwritten laws. she had taken her veena with her to the new household but soon her music was forgotten. Those whom she and Maharaj now entertained had no time for ragas and kirthanams. The veena was put away, forgotten, until this day when she had looked out on the garden with its wilting flowers, the unswept lawn, the empty birdbath. She remembered the hours she had spent in dalliance with her cousins in that garden of their youth, waiting for their husbands, waiting for marriage.

Under her breath she began to hum the bhairavi raga, ‘Pasyati disi, disi’—Radha in her arbour of flower creepers, weak with love, waiting for Govinda, for the fulfillment of that glorious consummation of which chastity and virginity were prerequisites. She had disappointed no one except perhaps her secret self long submerged and hidden away. She had waited for the realization of that love which she had yearned for all her life. All she had was the mundane view of the world. Others directed her sight to what lay before her. If only she could have lived out the myth and legends of the loves of the gods and goddesses she sang of. That was never to be. She prepared to put away her veena in the same hidden corner of a darkened room, never to bring it out again. She sang those lines softly to herself, lines which belonged to her youth: ‘She mourns, Sovereign of the world, in her verdant bower. She looks eagerly to all sides in hope of the approach; then, gaining strength from the delight of the proposed meeting, she advances a few steps, but falls to the ground. Rising, she weaves bracelets of fresh flowers; dresses herself like her beloved; and, looking at herself in sport, exclaims, “Behold the vanquisher of Madhur!”’

She sang the final line before she laid the veena down and covered it with an old silk saree—‘It is my beloved who approaches.’ Turning back to resume her life, she encountered only silence and emptiness.

‘I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes’

I will lift up mine eyes to the mountains, from whence shall my help come

—Psalm 121