Was it pre-written that she would walk the streets half dead?

Her mother’s voice filled her ears as she sat reading from the holy book next to the blackened stove. She could feel the heat from the cooling stove as her mother’s voice emboldened with faith spread across the house.

Nights, days, weeks and seasons, wind water fire and nether regions, in the midst of this he established the earth as a home for Dharma, upon it he placed the various species of being. By their deeds and their actions they shall be judged. God himself is true and true is his court. The good and the bad, the ripe and the unripe shall there be judged.

Rajjo damned it all and continued to walk. She rejected the court of God as she passed out outside a small temple on the roadside with a dry chuckle. She was convinced this was her last breath and all she wanted was to go back home and lie in the expanse of the sea green fields under the turquoise blue sky.

7

January 1991

RAJJO woke up in a stark room. There were four walls painted white and there was a narrow bed in one corner. A steel jug of water covered with a plate had been placed on a narrow side table along with an apple and a few bananas. She could hear light strains of a religious prayer floating in the background.

The room was cold as the evening mist drifted through the open window. Her body ached and her stomach rumbled like she had not eaten in ages. Without thinking Rajjo reached out for the fruit, peeled the banana and chewed on it. Immediately she winced in pain. She paused and looked around once more, wondering where she was. Was she back at the clinic?

Her mind threw up a hazy visual of her sitting on the highway on a cold winter morning, watching the cars whir by in a haze as the kind owner of an eatery had pitifully offered her water since she was bleeding. She could not recollect how she had reached the highway either.

And then her mind turned soft and feathery like a cloud, it was numbing down the aches and the biting cold, a liquid streamed across her body, a sharp horn hooted, a giant truck sped through the highway and then there was bliss again.

She’d woken up in this narrow bed. She took a cursory look at her surroundings again, when she read a sign through a window.

The board said Shradha Swami Foundation. Living in the grace of God.

Rajjo just stared at it. She was in some sort of hermitage.

From the open window, she could see colourful twinkling lights hung over a big and imposing black metal gate. Her foggy mind reminded her about this religious group, Shradha Swami Foundation. It was a huge spiritual establishment and they had organized a blood donation camp in her village along with a free dental check-up. The participants were also given a packet of biscuit as a bonus. She remembered her brother had gone three times for the extra packet of biscuits till he was shooed away.