By the time Salma made her way back to the village with the bundle of firewood she had gathered in the forest, dusk had fallen. Utterly exhausted, she put her load down on the platform built around the banyan tree, outside the village temple. She drank some water from the tank nearby and squatted on the ground.
Her kameez was so drenched in sweat that it had to be wrung out. The lower part of her pyjamas was torn in several places and her feet were flat and cracked, knocked as they had been against stones and thorns. She wiped her face, her head and her neck with her chunni, then sat back against the platform. Suddenly, her eyes filled with tears but she did not try to wipe them away as she had wiped her sweat. She gazed at the shattered image of the world before her through a film of tears.
Devotees streamed into the temple. There was only one temple in the village and people flocked to it, tired after their work, tired of coping with life. The sant who was seated in the glow of a lighted oil lamp sang to those who sat before him in the dark:
Jog biyog bhog bhal mamda
Hit anhit madhyam bhram famda
Janm maran jaham lagi jag jalu
Sampati bipati karm aru kalu3
Salma had a lump in her throat. The tears dimmed her eyes, reluctant to flow down. The shattered face of the world became as mystifying as the sant had described.
Days had passed since Govardhan had disappeared. She had no idea how much time had passed since Ali Dost had gone away. If coming together and separation were illusions, what was reality?
The truth was that human beings were always alone. If there was a truth beyond meetings and separations, likes and dislikes, birth and death, it was that a human being is ultimately alone. Salma was alone again. Salma and Mannu. At the end of each long day spent in hunting for food, firewood and water, mother and daughter withdrew into the narrow lair of night. With vacant minds in which no images took shape.
Salma laid her head on her knees and wept bitterly.
Her tears spent, the shattered world unified again.
The temple bells rang, then fell silent. The lamps flickered in the wind. Having explained the first few lines, the sant went on:
Dharani dhamu dhanu pur parivaru
Sargu naraku jaham lagi vyavaharu
Dekhiyo suniyo guniyo man mahi
Moh mul paramarth nahi4
Standing up on her exhausted legs, Salma lifted the bundle of wood onto her head again and walked on. There was no one on the footpath that wound through the shrubs. Except the evening and its fading light.
Suddenly a fear took shape in her mind. Whirling inside her mind like a cyclone, it blew away her fatigue. It was just two days before that some pandas had come to her with a demand. A young, unmarried thakur was dying. His soul would not attain salvation if he died unmarried. They needed a girl who would marry him. The girl they had found to marry him and burn on his pyre after he died was Mannu. They thought they could carry out this plan by enticing Salma and Mannu with money or threatening them since they were poor and helpless. Salma had scolded them and chased them away, but she was afraid now. Pandas were not the sort who would go away so easily. They would lurk in the vicinity, waiting for their chance. Salma quickened her pace.
She collapsed with the firewood at the door of the hut. There was nothing but darkness inside. When she lighted the lamp, the cruel face of reality appeared. The hut was completely empty. Not only Mannu but the pots she had taken that morning to fetch water were missing. Which meant that she had been waylaid on the way to the river. A curtain fell before Salma’s eyes, blocking the light entirely.
The village, never having been in the habit of lighting lamps in the evening, had sunk into sleep long ago. Not only the preparation of food and eating, but all other activities, movements, sounds, had ceased with the setting of the sun. Denuded, completely drained, Salma walked through a dense darkness, with no knowledge of where she was going. There was no path to tread, no destination to reach: all was darkness.