‘You look just like a porter,’ Saroja said, looking for a distraction and trying to shake away the memory of Podhaaru’s hook-like gaze. He had called her a cow, and he had stared at her just as though he was examining the animal at the country fair. Now, thinking of Kumaresan as a porter made her smile.

There were porters at Tholur railway station who scurried about carrying people’s luggage. She had never travelled by train, but she was familiar with the station. Whenever she happened to pass by, she would spend a lot of time there, just standing and observing. It was one of her favourite pastimes. Their initial plan had been to leave from Tholur by train. But since they would have had to leave at a moment’s notice, depending on whenever they found a good time to get away, they had abandoned that plan and decided to take the bus instead. The thought of going away by train had excited her. ‘A new experience starting with a new experience,’ she had thought. So she was definitely disappointed when that did not happen. He had comforted her, saying, ‘It is not like we will never come back to my father-in-law’s house again. We certainly will. And I will bring you by train then. Don’t worry.’ Concealing her tears, she had leaned on him for comfort. And when he ran his fingers gently over her cheek, she had held his hand and kept it from moving away.

‘You think I look like a porter?’ he said. ‘Let a month or two roll by. You too will walk like this carrying a basket of dung on your head.’

Looking at the faint smile on his lips, she said, ‘If you lift that weight and place it on my head, I will carry it for sure.’ Her words made him happy. ‘Just your saying so is enough. We will survive somehow even if we have just two cows.’

All along the way, she saw nothing but a barren landscape scorched into whiteness by the heat. Somewhere in the distance, she spotted a homestead. Thatched roofs. The two or three human figures that were out and about looked diminished from a distance. She walked with her eyes fixed on these distant figures. The path seemed endless; anyone coming here for the first time would have a difficult time finding the place. That gave her some relief.

From that endless path, they turned and started walking on a faint trail in the ground. Pointing to a group of thatched huts that sat on a large rock which looked like it had absorbed all the heat of the day, Kumaresan said, ‘That is our house.’ He had never said anything about his house before. She hadn’t asked him either. But when she looked at the thatched hut, something in her heart came undone. To console herself, she averted her gaze and looked at the rock instead. There were no other houses in the vicinity; only some trees. She was going to find it difficult to reconcile herself to this environment.