The ghats were getting ready for the evening arti, the fervour had picked up, the sun was receding somewhere in the sky and that’s when Rajjo’s heartbeat quickened. She knew before she turned around that he was here, standing right behind her.

The priests took their positions and the lanterns were lit, the bugles and trumpets started blowing in the gentle breeze as he looked at her, and she at him.

They both walked towards each other till he took her lips softly at first and then they merged into each other. Struggling with the clothes, tasting each other, making up for lost time. They found each other, as the bells of the arti rang through the sky and drowned her cries of passion. He took her right there, under the twilight sky. His mouth devoured hers, his hands caressed her skin, cupped her breasts, circled her tiny waist. He worshipped every inch of her. Rajjo moaned. She could hear the Ganga flow beneath them, marking their union. She had found salvation as he cried his release and came inside her.

Hours later, tangled in each others arms, bodies entwined, they gazed into each other’s eyes, drowning, till the ringing of the last bell died down and the ghats fell silent. The beautiful silence invaded her senses. She felt complete.

Perhaps it was the epilogue she had been seeking all her life.

2

2

‘Government issues notice to Godwoman Durga’

THE headline in the paper stared at Kesar and made him uncomfortable. Wearing khaki pants and a crisp blue shirt, he sat patiently in the crowded train, absorbed by the sounds and smells. Now in his twenties, Kesar still looked like a teenager, thin, scrawny with a hesitant demeanour. As the train chugged away, Kesar tried hard not to be bothered by the newspaper headline.

A co-passenger, poring through the paper opposite him, made it a little more difficult to avoid the screaming headline. ‘Godwoman Durga in yet another scandal?’ Kesar looked out of the window at the blurring landscape, a bit of green, a blob of brown, a patch of yellow. The open window was a blessing and he strained his neck to see the train winding through hills, valleys and forests. His butt ached from being squeezed, six of them sitting on a bench meant for three. He was scared to even cross his legs, lest the seat on which half his butt sat was also taken by the squashed man sitting next to him, waiting to spill out a bit more.

The passenger sitting opposite him shuffled the paper and the headlines were in his face again. Kesar willed himself to think of something else. The more he thought about the headline, the more he wanted to jump off the train and run back, his trip seeming increasingly pointless.