Clearing her face of any telltale mischievous expression, Rajjo stepped in the room to clear the plates as Seth-ji cleared his throat deliberately.

‘Jasbir, you were always a disciplinarian, and my young wife here gets into trouble just about too often!’

Rajjo’s hand froze midway as she picked up the dishes. The feeling was back again. Perhaps she had misheard the comment. Seth-ji stood up and instructed Kesar to clear everything. He gestured to Rajjo to follow him into the bedroom and made her sit on the bed. Rajjo did as instructed and her old drunk husband collected his favourite pillow from the bed. The sense of dread and panic began to set in. Rajjo sat immobile. She clutched the Durga deity that was on her bedside tightly to quell the sense of foreboding. A fleeting hope clung on, refusing to leave. Maybe she had misunderstood.

While Seth-ji changed into his nightclothes, displaying his old sagging skin as he removed his formal attire to don his nightwear, he turned to Rajjo.

‘He is an important man…’ Seth-ji explained calmly, as if he was talking to a little child.

‘I will be sending him in.’ He patted her head gently. There was no expression on his face. No pity, no guilt, no apology. It was like he was sending her to do a chore in the market.

Through her shock and numbness she heard him call out to Kesar who was washing the dishes in the kitchen to come out and press his feet. Minutes later the tall and heavyset Jasbir walked in reeking of alcohol. Something deep and guttural raged. He towered in the room. She heard the door being locked from the outside. Should she run, should she scream, should she just sit?

Rajjo was not going to move, she was not going to give in. She was going to fight. But her resistance was no match for the lust carried by the man. She could hear the strains of a beautiful song sung by a classical singer permeate the room as Seth-ji had increased the volume. She knew the porous house walls could not contain the noises.

It was going to be a long dark night. As if on cue, a flurry of fireworks went off. She remembered it was New Year’s Eve. The dark black sky outside exploded with firecrackers as the man assaulted Rajjo. She could see the beautiful lit sky through the window as she was pinned down on her bed. It was a spectacle to watch the dusky black sky erupt with firecrackers and illuminate the firmament.

As she heard the firecrackers ushering in the new year, she could almost feel the warmth of the stove her siblings and she sat around. She could almost taste the customary sweets her mother cooked for them at New Year as they watched the firecrackers go up in the sky from their courtyard.

As she lay unmoving underneath Jasbir, her face changed to horror when she saw him removing his leather belt and looking at Rajjo with lust. As Rajjo lunged away in panic, her cries were drowned in the crackers of the night and the classical song striking high notes in the room next door. The crackers continued for an hour, but her ordeal much longer.