While they were stopped at a red light, Govinda looked around. A policeman stood beside the car in between two men who were screaming at each other. Families strolled about the food stalls and pundals. When the lights changed, Ashok stomped on the accelerator, and the car moved swiftly through the traffic. The streets near the river were clogged with cars, milling pedestrians, vendors selling kites and lanterns. The Strand burst with sounds: shouts of vendors, car horns, the blare of Hindi music and the jingling bells of horse-drawn carts. Rich scents both pleasant and unpleasant drifted towards Govinda. The spicy smells of kebabs and pakoras blended with diesel fumes, garbage and sewage.

A tent had been set up for the guests. Fairy lights and oil lamps were lit as the sun set over the river. Guests thronged on the lawn. A musician in an orange suit played an electric piano and sang.

She is here

The hunter is here

If you are on her path

She dances with you

She is here

The hunter is here

Prepare for her destruction

And enter her creation

If you are on her path

She is here

The hunter is here.

Govinda’s mother and father refused to stand near one another. Sunil Seth personally greeted each of the guests because he insisted on good manners. He received everyone, rich and poor, powerful and humble, with an equal show of love and appreciation. The guests told Govinda how good he looked in his suit. His mother did her best to avoid the kisses and hugs of these strangers but his father insisted she stay and greet the guests. All of a sudden, she had a bad fainting bout. So grey was her face, so blue her lips! It was an agony to Govinda. He felt as if someone was pushing a knife into his abdomen. A little later she seemed better again, and he forgot his concern. But the anxiety remained inside him like a wound that would not heal. Most of the guests that turned up seemed to be his father’s friends. The education community was there, as well as people from the lane, people that worked in the tiny shops and sold fruit, the men from the bicycle repair shop, many of the portly men were dressed in kurtas and their equally fat wives in sumptuous sarees.

Gitanjali politely thanked the guests for her gifts though most of the time she said little. The puzzled look on her face told many that something wasn’t right.