‘Oh, please, that’s not why.’

‘So why, then? Explain it to me because I don’t understand.’

Gehna took a deep breath. ‘Okay, lemme ask you this. Doesn’t Buddhism discourage the taking of life? Or is that giant altar you have at home only for decoration?’

Nina Rai looked thoroughly confused for a moment. Then the penny dropped. ‘Oh my god. It’s because of religion that you’re doing this? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I thought all you feminists were supposed to be pro-choice.’

‘Firstly, what do you mean “all you feminists”? And secondly, pro-choice doesn’t mean pro-killing babies. It means that we have the right to make a choice. I’ve made mine. Or it’s been made for me, I’m not sure which.’

Gehna had wanted to avoid this conversation because she struggled to find the words to explain how she felt. It wasn’t about religion; both Varun and she had been brought up with their parents’ liberal attitudes, which meant covering your ass with fire rituals on big occasions like births, deaths, house-warmings and weddings, but otherwise being deeply embarrassed by the idea of God. Gehna believed that all beings—past and present and future—were interconnected in much the same way as the rain and rivers and seas. A single life in the universal karmic cycle began and ended just like a wave in the ocean began and ended. The waves might seem random but they were in fact a part, and subject to the laws, of something far greater than themselves. Believing she had any say in the comings and goings of the waves would have been stupidly arrogant.

To her mind, there was no such thing as an accidental pregnancy. Gehna had not made a religious choice, or even a moral one. She had simply welcomed the inevitable. She tried to tell her mother all this as best she could. What she didn’t mention was her strong feeling that this was important. Maybe she was selling her talents short, but she couldn’t escape the suspicion that nothing she did in life would change the world as much as bringing a child into it.

Nina Rai threw her hands up in exasperation. ‘Druhi, would you please come here and tell my idiot daughter that this isn’t some spiritual journey to find herself? This is a baby, and it is hard work.’ She wagged a finger under Gehna’s nose. ‘The only thing you’ll find on this road are sleepless nights and dirty diapers.’

Druhi didn’t walk so much as glide over. Gehna had always admired her grace and wished she herself had more of it. The moment Druhi entered a room, everyone else in it began to seem a bit clumsy and badly drawn.

Your mother is right, she signed. When she had first come to India from Kathmandu, her hometown in Nepal, Druhi had been a young girl who believed that people were essentially good-hearted. One month later, having been raped and robbed by a man she had trusted, she found herself staying at a women’s shelter. Nina Rai had heard of her case through a friend who volunteered at the shelter and offered Druhi a job and a safe home. In the nineteen years since, Druhi’s gratitude and loyalty had not wavered. She never openly disagreed with Gehna’s mother.