She talked to Darakhshan for a while after coming back and helped her chop vegetables. In her mind, fragments of Asrar’s conversations and the ghazals that he had recited were doing the rounds. She decided that one day she would ask Asrar to write them down in the Devanagari script so that she could also memorize them. The mother and daughter had dinner and immediately after having food, Hina went to her room and lay down.

She relaxed for a while and then got up to change her clothes. She came back to her bed in her nightie. She wanted to replay and refresh the entire day that had passed in her mind. She wanted to recollect every moment, every word that Asrar had said. She knew that the rewinding of those romantic moments gave a lot of pleasure. The sequences would get mixed up and she would start all over again. She fell asleep in the process.

A dark blue smoke floated in front of her eyes. That was sleep. It made her descend. In fact, it pulled her into its depths. She dreamt she was floating in an unlit tunnel. In a minute she was falling and floating in that tunnel at an immense speed of lakhs of kilometres. When she opened her eyes, she found herself lying in a garden on soft grass. She immediately stood up. She was naked. Her nakedness did not cause her any hesitation or embarrassment. She had no reaction towards her body. She lifted her eyes to see trees of fruits and flowers till the extent of her sight. Pink and blue creepers were twined around their barks. She took a few steps. On one side there was a grapevine on which small birds seemed to enjoy hopping. The fruits on the pomegranate and fig trees seemed very inviting. She was not hungry. She moved forward. A herd of deer was parading nearby. A panda sat on the tree and was looking down. The tree was very tall. The sky was in its place, but it wasn’t sunny. Probably it was that place where there was no night. She kept walking. Her hair swayed till her waist. She saw a river on the banks of which colourful pebbles shone brightly. Anyone could mistake them for precious stones and diamonds. No sooner had she taken a sip of water from the river than her thirst was quenched. She was not acquainted with that taste. She proceeded into the knee-deep water and sat in the river. The river floor was clean and small white stones shone on it. She thought it was possible that there were snow-topped mountains nearby. She looked all around only to see a long stretch of grasslands. There was no sign of mountains.

The water touched her as it flowed. She was elated.