‘Why will the files be in this ashram?’ Raahat screamed his next question while a woman tried to squeeze in and sit with them smiling at Raahat to be an obedient boy and adjust. Her huge bag of vegetables bore into his leg and her sweat mingled with some floral powder. He turned to Rajjo again and nudged her about the files.

Rajjo sighed and confessed. ‘Arjan has them, I saw them on his table…but I don’t know where he has stored them.’

Raahat was impressed with Rajjo’s detailing. It was beginning to seep in that Rajjo was going to have a good shot at this, their very own Godwoman. The thought made him smile. A sense of pride and victory lifted him, only to be smothered by the heavy old woman leaning on him as the bus took a sharp turn towards the left.

Rajjo turned to stare out of the bus window. That would make the crowd, the dust and the people go away. Every little window in the bus was a little getaway to a fantasy land that zipped by.

There was silence in her head as the bus made its way through a rickety road in the middle of some fields. She could see green patches stretched out on both sides. And then she heard herself say it aloud.

‘We have two months. We have announced First March.’

Rajjo continued to stare out of the window, inhaling the smell of the soil and vegetation. She had an urge to run back to her village and meet her family.

She wanted to sit in the village courtyard and watch the cow with kind eyes and tinkling bells around its neck walk round and round. Fuschia-coloured memories whispered in Rajjo’s ears.

20 February 1993

Kuljeet was breaking out in a sweat in the middle of the night. She was plagued by her devotion and affection. She needed to tell Rani Maa but she wanted to protect Rajjo. She had read her prayer books many times to find an answer, but it eluded her. Her decision flew like a flippant sparrow all around the tree, while the hunter sat patiently as the sun went down from dawn to dusk. But the sparrow would not sit on a branch long enough for him to catch her. Kuljeet felt the suffocation the guilt, the restlessness of the hunter, but she was also the hunted. She approached her quiet friend Arjan after a prayer session with her predicament.

As they slurped on the hot sweet tea in silence, mulling over the problem, Arjan finally asked her, ‘Would you sleep better if you told Rani Ma?’

Kuljeet sipped her tea, as she did not know the answer.