Rajjo stopped the rolling pin as she heard the awe in his voice.

‘It’s a hoax!’ Rajjo wanted to scream. But she continued to look on, till she felt a sharp nudge from the lady as she waited for Rajjo to put a fresh batch on the piping hot griddle to bake. Rajjo’s hands started moving again.

As she entered the kitchen the next morning she moved on to a new chore. Her favourite chore in the kitchen strangely proved to be chopping and piling up mountains of onions in coloured buckets. She could cry her soul out, she could cry in public and no one was going to be any wiser. It was liberating. However, she felt the guy in the long beard and black turban knew. The tall quiet and handsome Arjan toured the kitchen twice or thrice a day. Every time his eyes lingered a moment longer on the beautiful Rajjo. His kind eyes watched her closely.

As the week passed by, the onions got harder on her. The tears were drying up; her eyes were hurting. While she peeled the onions conversation steered to the history of the ashram. Rajjo’s ears pricked up.

The heavy old lady who was a regular volunteer from the village knew everything about everything. She wore gold bangles, gold hoops and gold chains. She knew about recipes, she knew about wars and she knew about piles and other diseases. They called her Mai – a term used to address the elderly. She slurped on her sugary tea and continued her rant as she took a break from her chores.

‘They say some dust fell on his pious feet from the top of the mound, when Amrik Singh-ji walked by. He sensed that some old souls were lying buried in the mound crying for salvation. The underground water was known to be very salty but the handpump pointed by the holy Amrik-ji yielded sweet water. First a gufa or tunnel was constructed and a diggie for water was dug. Canal water was arranged for water supply and the whole village drank for twenty-five years from that.’

Immediately after finishing her story she folded her soiled hands and prayed to the divine force. On cue the others in the kitchen did the same. Rajjo wanted to laugh. Suddenly it dawned on Rajjo that she was done with the onions and the chopping, it was time to move on to a new chore.

As she washed the sink full of utensils, the month spent in the kitchen raced in her head. It had been fruitful. Her obvious wounds almost healed, her body had become tougher. The soapy water swirled around, the tap gushed water on the mound of utensils piled up on the sink. A round water bubble floated up to her deaf ear and screamed, ‘You need a sidekick to sell and a miracle to tell.’