At last, Guruji turns to her. ‘You don’t need those great old composers Sadarang-Adarang any more. You’ve demonstrated your individual creativity. Your ideals are no longer those of your guru and your guru's guru. Your ideal is Pandit Raghuvir Sharma. He has flitted wantonly through all the gharanas, sucking here, sucking there, composing his own raags, his own songs. If you wish to follow his ways, you’re free to become his formal disciple. It is a disease that afflicts our nation, to despise our own and run after the alien. Grab and use is what people respect most these days. How can you escape it? Let's celebrate it then.’

Guruji is choked. Sharada looks at him with wet eyes, thinking, this man has suffered unknown hardships to acquire the knowledge he has; and although he has not given with as generous a hand as he could have, he has given me enough to last a lifetime. What did he expect when he was passing on this treasure to me? That I would sing his music in his name. So I do. But how can I convince him I do? How do I tell him that my confidence in doing something different comes from the fullness of his music in me? How unfair it is that he should think people enjoy my music because I use gimmicks to please them? How do I tell him that the audience did not care for my experiment that evening? That it made them uneasy, that such experiments are not designed to add to my popularity; if anything, they will do the opposite.

Guruji's face suddenly grows soft. He sighs and meets Sharada's eyes directly. ‘People say we must change with the times. I believe this should not apply to a timeless art like music. It is possible that my mind is mildewed. I am nearly seventy. You are barely thirty-five. You tell me then. What was your idea in singing Shuddha Sarang in the evening?’

Sharada knows this path is strewn with mines. Since Guruji has put a direct question to her, it would be impertinent not to answer. But to answer would be an arrogant admission that she thinks differently from him. Sharada takes a deep breath. ‘I didn’t do it just to be different. When the song came to me it came composed in Shuddha Sarang. It so happened that I had this concert coming up. So I felt tempted to try out the song before an audience, that's all.’

‘Merely because you felt tempted, you thought you would . . .’