On her weekend journey she encountered young men who were swiftly attracted by her smiling, pretty face with its slightly-pouting lips which parted ever so slightly to reveal delightfully idiosyncratic front teeth—it added to her charm, this slight touch of imperfection. It could not be considered a flaw, rather those two little front teeth which appeared like milk teeth made her look childlike and innocent. The young men were charmed by her. The hope of a new relationship would begin but somehow nothing seemed to last. A few letters, a few promised meetings and then the ephemeral bubbles would burst and end in nothing except the faint iridescence of memory.

Sulo loved nothing more than to enjoy life, to watch videos of romantic Indian films, to go on holidays anywhere, to even live in the houses of strangers, to go visiting places where she would observe in minute detail the lives of individual families—the ageing daughters for whom it was difficult to find husbands (and they were not half as attractive as Sulo who had both colour and academic qualifications), or the pretty daughter, the only daughter, of another family who had not realized either her own or her parents ambitions and had settled down to an amorphic, vegetable existence. There were some who had neglected their family duties and responsibilities and had hastily married before their sisters. There were all the others, too, who had found husbands abroad. And there were bored husbands jaded with their wives who gave her the glad eye.

Everybody, it seemed, wanted to marry someone settled abroad. Abroad was Elysium. Abroad was El Dorado. Abroad had become another country which could be anywhere on the map. Anyone who went there lived not in Germany, Canada, England, but ‘in Abroad’. It was a country, exotic, mysterious, flowing with milk and honey, much sought after. ‘In Abroad’ was where the money was. Comfort. A higher standard of living. Clothes from abroad, even a strange accent acquired from abroad marked you out as someone special. You were wealthier, more prosperous, more professionally qualified and educated if you lived and earned abroad. No loneliness, no locked doors, no cold winter or feeling alien, no racism. To be ‘in Abroad’ was to live in Xanadu.

Sulo’s cousin, Neela, had married a doctor, a widower. She was a trained English teacher herself, but one of a large family of girls. The proposal had been accepted, the marriage had taken place and Neela was now comfortably living ‘in Abroad’. The only child by the doctor’s earlier marriage was wisely in the hands of the earlier in-laws. Neela was now happily settled. Her mother, a seamstress, with all those daughters on her hands, was relieved that her daughter would now be very well off in England. Of course, news would trickle across. There was no supportive family system there and so when her first baby arrived, the mother had to fly to England for the confinement.