While getting off the taxi, she tried to figure out if there had been any change in her desires, life and aspirations that year. Had she softly walked through the phases of metamorphosis? Had she been able to cut herself off from the past and move towards the future? Was she successfully freeing herself from the anguish of the past to create a new, meaningful and happy life? Such questions kept crossing her mind. When she got off at Maulana Azad Road, her heart was cold, and her face was heavy. She slowly moved towards her house. Old clothes, boiled eggs, items of daily use were being sold on the footpath. She enjoyed the crowded streets and the hustle-bustle of Maulana Azad Road. The area was very congested. The noise pollution added to the beauty of the place. The great authors of the Urdu language, Saadat Hasan Manto, Krishan Chander, Ismat Chugtai and Rajendra Singh Bedi, had already witnessed and experienced the chaos, confusion, tumult and uproar of this place. Manto’s house was quite nearby.

There were innumerable people in that area. There were women clad in burqas and also slackers who were waiting for one glance of the covered voluptuous features of the burqa-clad women. They were either standing or roaming about in different directions. When her eyes caught a glance of the human figure in the red light of the signal, she was reminded of Asrar. She was surprised. The reason which had forced her into the marsh of introspection and self was not Yusuf, Darakhshan or Vidhi, but it was her meeting with Asrar. The time of the meeting, the context and condition, the day, the moment, the feeling, the scenery were exactly how Wardatul Sa’adat had foretold. She had never imagined that Wardatul Sa’adat’s prediction would ever come true. Now that she had met Asrar in the same condition as described in the prediction, a very painful possibility presented itself to her. She did not want Wardatul Sa’adat to be proved right. But was it possible?