The Buddhist monks who came to the door of the house for alms would deliver pious utterances, ‘Our actions and our life are a chain of sorrow. Happiness is only a transient feeling.’

The words of the monks would have a ring of truth for Dara. When had she experienced happiness in her life? It had always been as fleeting as the shadow of a passing cloud … The day she was elected Daughter of Saraswati … The ecstatic moment in the arms of Prithusen … Memories of things before and after that fateful encounter! In misery she thought, ‘The world is for the strong. For those who suffer, happiness lies only in renunciation. It is futile to have any attachment for life.’ But Shakul’s existence was not just a creation of her own imagination.

The yellow-robed monks who went from house to house begging for alms used to call upon unhappy worldlings to seek sanctuary in the Buddhist faith, ‘O suffering men and women, come into the fold of the Buddha! Come into the fold of the Faith! Come into the fold of the Monastic Order! He who is Mercy Incarnate will relieve you of all your troubles!’

In the early hours of the morning, before daybreak, little Shakul, lying on the ground by his mother’s side in the courtyard, began to cry. Dara took him to her breast. Shakul took his fill of milk and went off to sleep. A little later, the mistress and her child woke up and Dara was summoned to feed the other baby. Not finding any milk in the nurse’s breast during the very first feed of the day, the priest’s wife lost her temper. She screamed and berated and then set Dara to the back-breaking job of pounding rice to separate the grain from the chaff.

At midday, Dara was sitting in the veranda eating food from an earthen bowl, with Shakul on her lap, when Loma, the old maidservant of the house, came over to her. ‘You haven’t acted wisely, child, in annoying your mistress,’ Loma said pityingly. ‘The master and the mistress have decided to give Shakul away. Go to your mistress, you unfortunate girl, and beg for pardon.’

Dara could not eat anymore. Only one thought possessed her mind: What now?

In the afternoon, the priest and his wife were taking their siesta. Old Loma too had retired to a shadowed corner of the house to lie down. The baking hot afternoon of the month of Jyeshtha was as still as a winter night. The eye-searing rays of the sun left one as sightless as in the pitch darkness of the night. To escape from the scorching dust-filled wind hitting one like the waves slapping the side of a boat, the townspeople had withdrawn into their houses. And birds and animals had sought whatever shade there was to be found. Dara sat motionless, her hand on her forehead, fearing that her son might be snatched away from her at any moment.