She doesn’t look convinced. Annaiah decides there is only one way to go about it, however distasteful. He puts his arms around Thimmakka and draws her hard against him. She squirms, surprised at this very uncomfortable feeling.

‘Want more?’ He smiles gently.

She slowly shakes her head.

Annaiah smiles more widely now. ‘Go back home. Win back Ramappa.’

Thimmakka walks back in a daze. As she enters the courtyard of her house, Bangari looks up from the rangoli she is drawing just outside the front door. Thimmakka crouches to look at the exquisite design and anger rises in her in waves. She ought to be doing this, not Bangari. It is her house, not Bangari’s.

She grabs the rangoli powder bowl from the startled Bangari’s hands. Rushing off to the water drum near the door, kept there for washing feet, she brings back a pitcher full of water and splashes it over the rangoli. Bangari’s eyes fill with tears, but she silently goes inside. Thimmakka, triumphant, starts to draw, with some skill. She gets bored, though. Leaving the design half-finished, she goes into the house to see what else Bangari is up to.

Whatever Bangari does, Thimmakka is there to destroy. Ramappa’s breakfast is not ready on time and he shouts at Bangari for her tardiness. She, of course, doesn’t tell him why the food is not ready and he barges out of the house, hungry, hurt and furious. By the end of the day, Bangari is a wreck, listening to Thimmakka’s mocking jibes and enduring her endless physical abuse. Still, she cooks the lunch, the dinner. That day, she doesn’t go to the fields to work with Ramappa as usual, for Thimmakka says such horribly insinuating things.

As night approaches, Thimmakka tells Bangari in no uncertain terms that she has to get out of her house immediately. ‘Go back to Ajji. Go back to my brother’s house. You are trying to live my life. It will not work anymore. Get out of my house now.’

Thimmakka bundles Bangari’s few clothes and possessions and throws them out of the compound. Weeping, Bangari casts a last look at Chandru, who is wailing and holding his arms out to her. Thimmakka holds on to Chandru tightly until Bangari finally leaves.

That done, Thimmakka makes careful plans. She has to win back Ramappa. Shouldn’t be difficult, she thinks, shushing the still-wailing Chandru. She dumps the child into his little cot in a corner of Bangari’s room, shuts the heavy wooden door on him and goes back to her own.