She opened the little box of red vermilion and put a flaming mark on her forehead that would be her trademark for years. She had learnt the mantra that was going to be her voice for the future, the appeasement of Lord Shani. She perfected every syllable, every note. She had to utter it with the courage of a lioness; otherwise they were going to see through it all.

She piled her wayward stubborn curls in a tight bun that sat like a crown. And then with white talcum she laced her hair to give her age. She had perfected the art of application over and over on Raahat’s hair. She had prepared relentlessly. And now it was show time. Remembering the verse again, she muttered it under her breath.

Finally she glanced at her picture in the newspaper. The image staring back at her in the mirror was an exact replica. A wave of nausea threatened to take over. Her hands trembled. She was not going to lose her nerves and her mind to the jeering and howling in her head. Her deaf ear sat silent. It could be the silence of a storm. She was going to close her eyes and hide into a cave till they called out to her.

Seconds, minutes ticked by. She just sat there with her eyes shut. She heard the door open.

What if no one had turned up?

The fear was there to bite her again.

What if they hated her? Booed her off the stage?

She shut her eyes tighter.

She was getting lost in a subaqueous dark cave. She scraped through blinding darkness. It was difficult to breathe in the black that engulfed her. Black the colour of Shani took over her entire being and trapped her in a cave. Just when she was going to pass out breathless, smothered by the Cimmerian shade, something streamed in through tired cracks in a wall; a moonbeam. She was brought abruptly back to her surrounding with a voice calling out her name.

A pale Raahat cleared his throat.

Rajjo knew she had to get out of the cave and face the lights.

Raahat stood there with a strange expression. Rajjo was unsure how to read his expression. Was it despair at an empty hall? Was it elation at a packed congregation? Just then the cobalt-coloured silence percolated through the open door. The same one she heard in her deaf ear moments ago.

No noise meant no crowd. She had to go out and see the emptiness herself.

She moved past Raahat who stood there agape. The howling silence drowning her, she was ready to go under.