‘Well, and some good news, the five-campus university plan is approved. We can have 55 schools from pre-primary to high schools across the country. Also, along with Durga channel, we have the permissions to float another one, Maa Durga and all our products and services will benefit from it. This afternoon we can go over everything and in the evening Karam has the update on the luxury resort. In fact, you can visit it next month yourself.’ Rano was giving her toys to play with.

Devi chuckled. The dance they were performing had no audience.

Karam stepped forward, ‘The resort is a perfect marriage of spirituality and luxury. The zen environment with bamboo trees, water bodies, peacocks, Buddha busts, mood lighting also packs in everything that a luxury holiday would comprise: swimming pool, cottages and great food.’

Rajjo could hear the chanting on the speakers, the voices were drowning her. She was up in flames. She was burning. It was time for her to save her soul or to perish. She wanted a way out, perhaps there was none. Perhaps this was the destiny she had to follow. She had risen from the ashes and created this mammoth beast, she had it in her power to soar to new heights. She was not going to quit. She was not going to melt. She was going to unlove and detangle her soul from him. The swirls of the cosmic cycle, trapped her, made her forget her hatred and her business, her maya and her faithlessness. Like a chant she repeated over and over, this was the only truth, she seeked nothing more.

Rajjo sat in the Radha Gardens, with parrots and other birds nesting in the thick foliage of banyan trees, her mother oiling her hair. A tradition she cherished as a child. The garden was replete with a pair of elephants, a pair of geese, some rabbits and the exotic birds that were her mother’s favourite. She chuckled like a child as beautiful birds flew over the lake. The tress swayed to the Sanskrit chanting from the temple gopuram. It was a course started by Rano where kids were trained in temple rituals. Rajjo did not understand any of it but it did make for good business and more money. Life had come a long way. She felt a searing pain as Saroj’s sweet fingers touched her scalp. What ached her mother’s heart, she wondered?

Saroj’s heart still ached as she thought of her five children sitting around her, eating and bickering, enjoying the monsoons, sharing stories in the winter. How time had changed and here they were. She wanted to gather all five of them – Rano, Rajjo, Rikki, Reet and Sheru – take them back in time and huddle next to them. She heard Rajjo talk and her reverie was broken as her hand gently rubbed oil in her daughter’s luscious hair. She found her voice and hoped her daughter heard her.