Her followers, since the self-immolation announcement, had grown in leaps and bounds. Half of his family offered their prayers to Guru Maa Durga. His own house had more pictures of the black sari-clad Godwoman than his own dead mother! The thought of his dead mother reminded him of her advice for a bad stomach. Curd was the cure. Perhaps he should look for some curd on the way. Not that they were going to find the Godwoman hiding here in this godforsaken place. His bet was she was in Greece, cooling her heels in a bikini!

Just then his phone rang and Tyagi’s wife screeched, ‘I hear Guru Maa was spotted in the town. Swear on your dead mother, you will call me the moment you know everything!’

‘Why? Will you jump and the fire with her? If you promise, I will call you right away.’ Of course the phone line went dead shortly after, and Tyagi cruised on, ignoring the woman on the side road with the backpack, clutching a package in her hand, looking lost and worried, slipping into the shadows.

Footsteps echoed in a long dark solitary stretch of road as the lonely figure walked briskly, her head covered against the cold night. Her breath came out in short bursts of smoke, her specs sliding down her nose. Her nervous cold fingers clutched at her backpack time and again, as if she carried on something precious in her hands. Her heart thudded in short sharp bursts like a church bell ringing on a clear afternoon. Rajjo was in Manali and somehow she had to reach the undisclosed location in two days, where Devi would be waiting for her. She knew she was being followed and tracked in every manner possible. All sorts of people from her family to her enemies to her lover were hunting her down. All she had to do was not get caught and reach her pyre. Almost like a beloved meeting her lover against all odds. She hurriedly walked through the roads in Manali, her brain racing, to decide her next route. Tall shadows of the deodars and pines loomed menacingly over her. Rajjo shivered. One false step and it was all over. Her final destination lay in the lap of beautiful Manali.

Manali, known as the land of the Gods, was named after the Hindu lawgiver Manu. Manu the sage stepped off his ark in Manali to recreate human life after a great flood deluged the world.

The old Manali village even had an ancient temple devoted to Sage Manu. Her destination was this temple.