The crowd, which now rang with the women’s laughter, had grown in size. People who lived in distant fields had heard the news and were trickling in to join the throng. The new arrivals peered into the hut to take a look at Saroja, but they could not see her face clearly in the shadows. Content that she would have to step out eventually, they found shaded spots outside, and sat down to gossip:

‘It’s true. She is not dark like us, is she? She is pink like the eastern sky at dusk. Just like a film star.’

‘Look at our Maara’s fortune. All these years, she was alone on his rock. Now she has a daughter-in-law who looks like a film star. She is going to be busy adoring her.’

‘Worried that her daughter-in-law’s feet might hurt if they walk on the rock, she will make her tread on cotton. Concerned that her skin might darken in the sun, she will build a palace to keep her safe.’

‘Did you see how brilliantly her nose ring shone, catching the sunlight? That must be what knocked Kumaresan down.’

‘Hey! Since when do we call him “Kumaresan”? Just because he has found a fair-skinned a girl, have you all renamed our Nōndippayyan?’

‘How can we call him Nōndi in front of his new bride?’

‘Even if he gets a wife, has children, or even grandchildren, Nōndi will remain Nōndi. Is that going to change? Some of us might know him as Kumaresan, but surely not the entire village?’

From their ceaseless chatter, Saroja gathered that ‘Nōndi’ was their nickname for Kumaresan. For some reason, she did not like that name. What sort of a name was Nōndi? ‘Kumaresan’ was such an affectionate name. It was what she preferred to call him.

She recalled how, one afternoon, exhausted from the previous day’s work, Kumaresan had been fast asleep on a cot outside his quarters in Tholur. He was not in the habit of sleeping like that, but the tree’s alluring shade had cast a spell on him. When she stepped outside her house for some reason, this frozen picture of Kumaresan sleeping under the tree caught her attention. She had stood there looking at him for a while. There was no one else nearby. She walked closer, said, ‘Dey! Kumaresa!’ and ran back into the house. When she looked out, he was awake and sitting up. She felt bad for having woken him up. She couldn’t talk to him right away, but when she got a chance later that evening, she said, ‘Did I wake you up?’

He laughed. ‘It was you I was talking to in my dream! So after you spoke to me, I cuddled with you and went back to sleep.’

She had smiled shyly.

After that, he’d tell her now and then, ‘Please call me “Kumaresa!” just once.’ And she would. ‘Not like that,’ he would say. ‘The way you did in my dream the other day.’ Then she would soften her voice and call him again. But no matter how many different ways she said his name, he was not satisfied: ‘No, it doesn’t quite sound the same. Try again.’ And if she walked away in a huff, he’d laugh. She had muttered his name in her mind like a chant in so many ways. And here, instead of that lovely name, they called him Nōndi!