Ho Han looked him in the eye, and calmly answered, ‘I’ll stop making lead sheets.’

The manager stood still in shock. Ho Han was the tea garden’s one and only lead-sheet maker. He was the head fitter too. The manager could neither provoke nor antagonize him. Throwing the whip away in disgust, he walked inside the bungalow.

Ho Han released the women. Covering their faces with their hands and sobbing wildly, the women walked out, utterly drained. The women and girls who were assembled outside came and surrounded them. The situation changed instantly. The coolie lines became agitated. After sometime, the enraged labourers came out of the lines with their bows and poison-tipped arrows. The manager called the police. The sardars entered the coolie lines to pacify the labourers. In all this commotion, Phulmati and Ho Han were not to be found. They were sitting on the quiet banks of a nearby river.

‘Everything there was in order. Ma was there. Baba was there. Two brothers and one sister too. I couldn’t even imagine that I would come to such a country. One day, our Jagnu uncle came and told me, “Let’s go to the fair.” Ma said, go! Who could think this would happen? Had I not gone out with my uncle, nothing like this would have happened to me. Jagnu mama sold me to the trafficker Arkathia. And then everything went downhill …’ Phulmati cried her heart out. After some time, Ho Han took her hand and said, ‘Don’t think like that. Who doesn’t have sorrow? Still, we have to live. Think about these tea bushes. Don’t you think they’re sad? A tree which was as tall as four men put together is cut to the size of half a man. But the tea tree did not die of that sorrow. Instead, it branched out from its sides. The tree did not die. It lived. We too have to live.’

Gently, he took Phulmati into his arms and said, ‘Look at me. My own parents sold me. Look at the mark on my forehead. With a hot iron, my master stamped me as slave. I too have no one in this world. I too have a lot of sorrow. But I don’t tell anyone.’

A flood of tears, held back for more than three decades, flowed from his eyes. ‘Will you marry me, Phulmati? I can’t live alone anymore.’

*

Someone rang the doorbell.

Lailin looked towards the door, confused.

It was a new day outside. How many hours had passed? She looked at her watch. It was half-past seven. It took her a while to understand where she was. Wiping the tears from her eyes, Lailin looked at Arunabh’s book.

The bell chimed once more.

Marking the page with a pencil, Lailin went to the door. Standing outside was her father. A thin and frail old man in dishevelled clothes, he looked at Lailin from head to toe. Then, in a grave voice he said, ‘Where is Mei Lin? Call her!’