She has no company at all when he is away. She cannot go out of the temple, not even to the headman’s house to see her mother or Ningamma, or baby Puttaswamegowda. She is an outcast to her own people. With time, Gangi takes to talking to the brown-orange walls of the temple. She draws on her imagination, thinks up stories and dreams and shares all that she knows about life with them. Sometimes, she tells Ajji, who braves the village’s wrath and visits her daughter as often as she can, the walls actually speak back to her.

The walls know so much about what is going on in people’s minds. Everyone wants more and more, she tells her mother. I have learnt from the walls that there really is no contentment in this world. I am trying to be happy with what I have.

The walls, she says, tell me that they will always be there for me. They say they are sturdy and will not go away or melt, come what may. We don’t ask anything of you, Gangi, the walls tell her, but Gangi says she will keep them clean and shining, for that is all she can do for these friends.

Ajji despairs. Her daughter is going crazy and there is nothing she can do. When she thinks of what Gangi’s life should have been with Kumaraswamy … Ajji knows that she has done wrong by her daughter to save that useless husband of hers.

Then Gangi discovers that she is pregnant and becomes dreamy. She is happy, singing every day, walking up and down the temple, talking to herself and the unborn child. You will be the sun and the moon and the stars, my child, she says. You will be strong and handsome like your father, but gentle like me. I will send you to school and you will become a big man in this village. Everyone will salute you, but they will also love you. She weaves her dreams.

As the child grows in her, Gangi’s head becomes light and her belly grows big. She feels ill all the time and cannot cook or clean or keep her walls bright and shining. She loves the feel of the child and when the baby kicks inside her, she runs all around the Kamadeva temple, telling every stone and every wall of her delirious feeling of joy.

By the time she gives birth to her first child, Annaiah’s stories are less searing. No one really knows what to call the baby, as no one knows Annaiah’s caste. Doddegowda refers to the child as his grandson Nagegowda and the villagers follow suit.

Sannegowda has also returned home. His swelling is gone. He is able to walk without trouble. He can never be persuaded to go to the Kamadeva temple to see his daughter and his grandchild, though.

The childbirth has taken a heavy toll on Gangi’s strength; not even her mother is there for it. Annaiah gives her some roots as medication, but they don’t help the terrible pain. Her body is racked with spasms and she screams for hours. Annaiah knows enough to cut the umbilical cord, but that is all. Gangi has to clean herself, the baby and the blood-splattered stone floor of the temple.