Lying in bed, I thought of you. I thought of your heart. I thought of your thighs and your shins, your arms and your embrace. But I couldn’t picture myself at your side. Instead, I found her taking my place. Naked, poised, eager. You drew together hungrily. I watched your lovemaking. And pleasure coursed through my body. Thinking of you, I came, shouting ‘I love it, I love it.’

Then, I couldn’t tell whether it was I who said it or she: ‘We will be married one day, one day there will be music all day and night. Having played all day and night, the music will stop of its own accord. It will stop … and gasp …’

2

She had consigned the panty to the flames. She had burned her attachment to her life as a woman. As a result, she was exhausted. Exhausted, she had wand­ered to this place …

Over there, whores were lined up like a row of the goddess Durga’s idols. Meanwhile, on this side, the goddess Kali, full of possibilities, might awaken at any moment.

In between was the Ganga – or was it just a canal of loathsome black bilge?

The steps of the ghat led down to the water on both sides. A wooden boat to ferry people across was moored to the opposite bank. On this one, a wooden tray was being washed in the diseased water.

She stood on the broad steps of the ghat. Blue aparajita flowers – clitoria – were scattered near her feet. A mangy dog had been following her for some time. It was eleven at night, and a philanthropist was distributing bread to beggars. The beggars were clamouring for more. Though actually, they had no expectations. No expectations of the temple in which they stood, no expectations of the country in which they lived.

A blind beggar was playing his castanets without let-up. He seemed to have appeared before mankind in this form for centuries, though no one had recognised him. His tragic music had made one of them part with a rupee or two – the only one who had identified the gift he had given them in return. The elderly priest kept ringing the temple bell. He was eager to make a few more sacrifices to the goddess.

A woman wandered about alone, reciting Radha’s speech to Krishna, the illicit lover she called by another name: ‘I beg of you, Shyam,’ she said, ‘I beg of you, even if I, Radharani, die, don’t forsake me in the darkness. If you do, I shall set up my own pyre by the Yamuna and burn myself to death. Wherever you may be, the smoke from the pyre will sting your eyes, wherever you may be, your heart of stone will dissolve in tears.’

She was already feeling overwhelmed when a stooped old woman whispered into her ear, ‘The bitch usually whores around day and night. It’s just once a month when she’s indisposed that she pretends to be Radha.’