‘Your mother hasn’t come back from the temple. The procession could not have ended.’

‘I don’t know about her but I could hear father’s snores from the courtyard. And there is a light in Beena’s room. She must be studying.’

Sher Singh gave himself a long look in the mirror before taking off his turban and uniform. He went into the bathroom, poured a few mugs of water on his body, and came back dripping to dry himself under the fan. He saw himself in the mirror. His paunch showed no sign of reducing. He pulled it in and thought how much nicer it would be if it always stayed there. He bent down and touched his toes three times and re-examined the effect on his middle. He put on his thin muslin shirt and pajama. Before switching off the light he looked round the room to see if everything was in place. Champak had taken off her kimono and lay stark naked on her belly. She had the pillow between her arms, her legs were stretched apart. Sher Singh knew what this meant. ‘My God I feel fagged out,’ he said wearily and switched off the light.

Champak stretched out her hand and caught her husband’s. ‘Now it’s dark, I can tell you about this Mundoo of yours. He’s not all that innocent, you know!’

‘Oh? What did he do?’ asked Sher Singh yawning at the same time.

‘Come over and I’ll tell you,’ she mumbled, tugging at his hand.

Sher Singh rolled over on to her bed and let her put her hand on his arm. ‘When I bathe, he keeps peeping through the crevices of the door.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I know. And today he burst into the bathroom on the pretence of bringing in the hot water. I didn’t have a stitch on me. Not one thing! My God, I nearly died of shame.’

‘Why don’t you bolt the bathroom door?’

‘Never occurred to me; I thought everyone was out. In any case he should have knocked before coming in.’

‘I suppose so. He’s only a little fellow he said. ‘Let’s go to sleep.’ A minute later he began to breathe heavily.

Champak’s body twitched. She moaned as if in a nightmare and snuggled closer to her husband. She caught his hand and took it lower down her body. Sher Singh knew there was no way out.

‘What have you done?’

‘Just to give you a little variety.’

When the procession came back to the temple from its round of the city, it was well past midnight. Only a handful of men and women were there to welcome it back. Sabhrai and Shunno were amongst them. They had walked behind the decorated motor-van which carried the Holy Book for the first mile or so till the heat and jostling from the crowd had become too much for them. They came back to the temple to await its return. Shunno went to the open-air kitchen to help other volunteers wash and clear up the mess, over 10,000 people having been fed there that morning. Sabhrai sat beside the platform, on which there was another copy of the Granth, listening to the recitation.