Sumitraben makes a slight eye movement to invite Prakash in. Even after slipping out of his chappals, he doesn’t have the heart to step on those pristine white mattresses. He has had a bath before leaving home but he wonders anxiously if he has scrubbed the soles of his feet, particularly his heels, hard enough. It would be too mortifying to leave a trail of smudgy footprints behind him. He looks surreptitiously over his shoulder. The sheets are still white.

Sumitraben casts her eyes over him and says, ‘You are beautiful.’ Prakash’s brain does a somersault. He is wearing a white kurta pyjama and has combed his hair neatly. The lady doesn’t look as if she’s teasing him. She doesn’t look as if she ever teases anybody. But she is gazing at him as an art lover gazes upon a painting. She takes his sweaty palm in her cool marble hands. He thrills to the touch and lowers his head in shame. She stands erect and says to him in a mellow voice, ‘A beautiful body is God’s gift, Prakash. You must learn to celebrate it.’

Sumitraben drops his hand gently and glides to the door. She stands there greeting each guest with deep humility. The room gradually fills with men in churidars and silk jhabbas with wives in finely spun saris of pale cloudy shades and deep-necked cholis. Some of the couples are accompanied by girls in salwar kameezes and boys in jeans. As they take their seats, servants come out bearing silver trays of sherbets in crystal glasses—watermelon juice like melted rubies, litchi juice flooded by moonbeams and khus with the sparkle of pale emeralds. Prakash sits in a corner, his body squeezed small, waiting nervously for what is to happen. The light buzz of conversation passing between the guests suddenly stops. Sumitraben is escorting Shivanand Swami into the room. She requests him, bending very low, to ascend to the throne. The swami is dressed in a long robe of white silk. He wears pearl ear studs, a string of rudraksha beads around his neck—each as large as a grape—and a large, orange mark on his forehead. He sits down and, in a single sweeping glance, takes in the gathering of devotees, his eyes resting briefly on every face in the hall. The middle-aged woman next to Prakash exclaims ‘aah’ as if a sharp, sweet pain has shot through her body. The swami closes his piercing eyes and sits for a while in meditation. The air grows heavy with the devotees’ collective bated breath.