It was 2 a.m. when Rajjo ran down the corridor. The hospital staff sprung into action to control her. Devi ran behind Rajjo to stop her. ‘The girl woke me up! She came and told me he is going to leave if I don’t stop him! She should stop them!’ As she tried to go across the corridor to Harsh’s room, Upasana came out, looking immaculate and beautiful in her sorrow. She wore a pink suit, and looked like a pale rose bud in winter. But her face mirrored her tiredness.

She knew about Rajjo staying in the hospital and she had let her stay in the vicinity as Harsh battled for life. She had to share the suffering of waiting for him to die. Each episode of Rajjo’s senile behavior gladdened her heart. It was poetic justice. And here she stood, disheveled, maniacal – a mere shadow of the beauty she once was. Her face shriveled up in sorrow. Upasana looked her in the eye and compassionately broke the news, ‘The doctors are advising to pull the plug. Time is running out. You can come and see him once, you can come and say your good byes to him.’

Upasana allowing Rajjo to see Harsh was her last victory and Rajjo would have happily accepted defeat had she not known there was still hope. He could be saved. Ignoring Upasana Rajjo made a beeline for the nurse. ‘Did the patient wake up?’ the awkward nurse shook her head yet again. Rajjo turned to both off them and muttered with a strange conviction, ‘He will.’

Upasana rejoiced in her turmoil. Her pain acutely lessened as she saw Rajjo suffer. ‘I think of him, I hope and pine for him day and night: is there any saint who may bring him near me?’ By now her sleepy companion Devi stood behind her, nudging her gently to move. Rajjo would have none of it. Despite herself Upasana whispered with pity and hatred, compassion and sympathy, ‘You are the Godwoman. You should not be begging for his life in these corridors… What will your devotees think? What happened to your faith that you sell in your shops with ointments and balms?’

Rajjo was beyond all that. Rajjo knew it was time. She was waiting here in the antiseptic walls and corridors to pass the time, till she knew the way. Ironically it came from the woman who hated her guts.

Looking at Upasana squarely in the eye, Rajjo found her mother’s voice from her village mingling with her own resolve, ‘The lord himself makes the demons pursue saints and he himself saves them. I am overflowing with sins and demerits. I have no virtues at all. I abandoned the ambrosial nectar. I drank poison instead.’