Shunno loved to talk, like most women of her age and frustrations. (She had become a widow before she was twenty.) Her sexual instincts had been sublimated in hard work, religion, and gossip. She spared no one, not even members of the family for which she had worked for nearly thirty years. The only reason why she had failed to create misunderstandings between them was because they knew her well.

Despite her tongue, Shunno was a God-fearing woman. She said her prayers, went to the Gurudwara and, on religious festivals, helped menfolk in the community kitchen. She was not narrow in her faith. She also went to Hindu temples, bathed in the river every Tuesday morning, respected Brahmins and cows. Even Islam was not beyond her religious pale. She visited tombs of Muslim fakirs, left offerings with their guardians, and consulted them on her imaginary ailments. She never let a beggar, be he a Hindu, Sikh, or a Muslim, return empty-handed from Buta Singh’s door.

Shunno’s one grievance with life was that no one took her seriously. Although her master and mistress disapproved of her forays into other faiths, they said nothing to her. But the younger members of the family made fun of her. They often insinuated that her visits to the river had motives other than spiritual. And since she was never known to have been ill, it did not take much to twist her accounts of visits to Muslim medicine men.

Shunno did not tell anyone about her new ailment for the first few days. Many times during the previous month she had returned form her early morning performances with a slimy feeling between the thighs; her left hand which she used to wash her bottom felt as if it had been dipped in glue. She had to wash again with fresh water before she felt clean.

On the morning of the first of Jeth (early May), Shunno got up earlier than usual; she had to get the morning tea and the pershad ready. She had also to sweep the Gurudwara room and prepare it for the first-of-the-month ceremony. She went to the corner of the garden and after she had finished, washed her person with water she carried in her brass jug. She got the same clammy feeling which she had had before. She decided to get some of the kitchen work out of the way before going to the tap for a second wash. Half an hour later, in the light of the gray dawn, she noticed some red stains on her Punjabi trousers. She examined her left hand; it was also smudged with crimson. She filled a pail with fresh water and hurried to her quarter. She took off her trousers and splashed water between her thighs. It trickled down her legs tinged with red. She felt weak and slumped down on her charpoy. After a few minutes she woke up Mundoo and told him to tell the mistress that she was unwell. That was the first time in the many years of service in Buta Singh’s home that Shunno had not turned up at the Gurudwara for the first-of-the-month ceremony.