They were still wearing their school uniforms; limp orange shirts and blue salwars. Threadbare red ribbons trailed down their braids. Reet’s was perfectly woven into her plait but Rajjo’s was all over the place. Her luscious, thick, curly hair glistened in the evening light. Her face looked radiant and untouched. She was dusky in colour with striking tan eyes that made you stare at her for a second longer. Her mouth was a perfect bow. She had a heart-shaped face, tawny eyes, she was willowy and sported a defiant chin. Reet knew she had serious competition in Rajjo. Rano was pretty, but Rajjo was fiercely beautiful. Her hair, unlike the other sisters’, fell in ringlets of curls, a curtain of velvety satin.

She hated that most about Rajjo. Her beauty. Otherwise she did not mind her rebellious sister’s escapades.

Their fourth sister Rikki, who was three, was playing with the broken tea-set. The older sisters were supposed to mind the younger one but they were unmindful that she was chewing mud.

The girls looked on as their mother prepared dinner and monitored the evening fodder for the cows, and their father drove a truck to some place south. He travelled a lot lately. However, he never came back emptyhanded from any of his trips. He always got them little tokens, whether it was needed or not, like Rajjo got a plastic toy bus that she could not think of anything to do with. Reet had already dismissed her gift, knowing her father had absentmindedly picked up something on the way. Rano on the other hand, collected hers and everyone else’s and hoarded them in her special trunk that she had festooned with ornaments and trims. Her mother would fondly call her the ‘hoarder’. She had an inquisitive nature and collected things to put them to some good use, be it-discarded clothes, toys, bedsheets.

Rano loved toying with numbers. She knew their mother was proud of her financial acumen and the thought made her belly swell with a warm, secure feeling.

Rajjo inhaled the smell of freshly cut wheat. Her neighbour Karam worked alongside his father and mother in the field. Karam was striking with his pale colouring and light eyes like his father. His mother had a pale leaf coloured dupatta tied around her head covering her nose and mouth like a dacoit. She had a sickle in her hand that moved deftly in bold, confident strokes. Moga also wore a dark cloth covering his eyes and face. Except Karam, everyone had covered their faces. Karam had removed it when he had seen Rajjo and party looking on.

Rajjo smiled at Karam and looked up at the beautiful cantaloupe-coloured sky. The sun wove golden civvies in the horizon. An old man wearing a loongi and a kurta thrashed bales of wheat on a round circular drum.

Just then Rajjo noticed a swanky tractor pass, followed closely by a lofty gleaming car with tinted windows. A proud beast gliding on the roads arrogantly. People wearing flashy sunglasses stepped out to take pictures with their cameras. They looked affluent, like they’d descended from another world, fascinated by the peasants who were gathering wheat in the fields with their faces covered. Their cameras clicked away, like they’d spotted exotic animals.