The monk remained unmoved, as before. ‘If you are a slave, do you have the consent of your master to embrace the Faith?’

‘No, Holy Father,’ Dara replied timidly. ‘It is on her own account that your humble servant is begging for asylum.’

The monk raised his eyes. ‘Lady,’ he said looking at Dara, ‘according to the laws of the Faith, the Monastic Order cannot grant shelter to a woman without the approval of her guardian.’

Dumbfounded, Dara stared at him again. Seeing him about to rise from the mat, she folded her hands and said in a tearful voice, ‘But Father, Lord Buddha once granted shelter to Ambapali, the prostitute!’

‘Lady, a prostitute is a free woman,’ the monk replied and rose from the mat.

Stupefied, Dara stared open-mouthed after the monk as he walked back to the monastery and disappeared behind the door. The young monk came out, rolled up the mat and went back inside. The doors of the monastery were shut. The sweltering air kept ruffling the foliage of the pipal tree in search of shelter from the sun. Dara, her face reflecting the rejection she felt, still sat on the platform. She was unable to think or understand anything. Only the words of the monk kept ringing in her ears: ‘Lady, a prostitute is a free woman!’

Shakul’s cries shook her out of her reverie. She gave the child her breast to stop him from crying. But finding the breast empty of milk, the child cried louder than before. Dara was not permitted even the comfort of forgetting herself for a while, or of remaining oblivious to her surroundings. It was necessary for her to feed herself in order to be able to nurse her baby. She felt no appetite, but the thought that her son was hungry made her stomach twist with hunger.

She got down from the platform. Her legs shook under her from fatigue and exhaustion, and her arms felt limp under Shakul’s weight. She fought hard to regain control of herself and hold on to her child lest he should fall. Leaving the shade of the pipal tree, she went back to the scorching heat of the road, with blasts of hot air beating against her face.

Dara dragged her steps along the road which, a little while earlier, had held so much promise. Driven by panic, she had run away from the priest’s house to find some safe place for her child. Now both mother and child were destitutes. Her mind went into a daze, from pain and shock. Only one thing flashed across again and again, that a prostitute was a free woman. That as a slave, as a dependent, as a woman, there was no place for her.

‘Was there ever a time when I was free?’ she asked herself in desperation. She had accepted slavery so that she might be free to keep her child. By enslaving her body, she had hoped to preserve the freedom of her mind. But she did not succeed in getting the freedom she wanted. A woman from a high family is not free. Only a prostitute is free.