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every time he looked at his wife, more beautiful than when they had first married.
    Sona’s fears were realised sooner than she had anticipated. Sushila exhibited no difficulty in conceiving; within a year she gave birth to a baby boy.
    Great was the jubilation at this first grandchild. (Sunita’s son Vicky, born six years earlier, did not count.) The male line was augmented, courtesy of Sushila and Pyare Lal. A boy brought up within the nurturing ambit of the shop would in turn ensure its continuing prosperity when he grew up.
    The new aunt was secretive about her feelings. Yashpal was not to know how jealousy raced up and down her veins like sharp-pointed needles when he came home and called for the baby to play with. He actually thought she would be happy when he proffered the child to her, and said, look, now our house is full, actually thought she would be happy. Was it men, or the exceptional large-heartedness of her husband?
    Covertly Sona became even stricter in the rituals she observed. Where could she turn except to God? Her face was already in that direction; now she did not allow herself even a sideways glance.
    Every Tuesday she fasted. Previously she would eat fruit and drink milk once during this day, now she converted to a nirjal fast. No water from sun-up to sundown. She slept on the floor, abstained from sex, woke early in the morning, bathed before sunrise. For her puja she collected fresh white flowers, jasmine or chameli, unfallen, untrodden, from the park outside the house.
    In the evening she went to the local temple, buying fruit on the way to distribute to as many Brahmins as she could.
    By the time Pyare Lal was twenty-six he was the father of two sons, and Sona thought it was not possible to be more miserable. There must be some deficiency in her prayers or a very bad past karma that made her suffer so in this life – and that too when she had the appearance of every joy a woman could have. Beauty, a fair skin, an attentive husband, a well-to-do family. She had tried to make sure her in-laws never regretted her husband’s transgressive love, proving her suitability every day, year after year. She was humble, easy to mould, and ready to please. Sona was gold, like her name. But what use was all this if the Banwari Lal blood did not pass on in its expected quantity?
    The fruits of Sushila’s womb delivered with so much promptness caused the gold in Sona’s nature to bend under their weight. As she lay in bed, she could feel the fecundity of life upstairs, falling through the floor and pressing upon her heavily, so heavily, that for nights and nights she could not sleep.
    In the day small things drove her into a frenzy of irritation. Everyone, she felt, found her defective goods, despite her pale colour, large hazel eyes, small neat nose, red lips, even teeth, and perfect skin. How she wished she did not have to live in a joint family! If she and her husband lived separately, she too could be happy, like her sister Rupa.
    Sona’s marriage had not in fact led to a brilliant future for Rupa. No proposal had forced her to give up her education. She finished her BA, after which her father arranged her marriage to the son of a retired colleague, based in Karol Bagh. The location of the groom in the sister’s neighbourhood was one of the reasons the alliance was deemed suitable.
    Given Rupa’s dark skin, she was considered to have married as advantageously as her circumstances allowed. The family was very small: one father, one married daughter, and one son. Their eligibility came from the ownership of a house in Karol Bagh, their security from the boy’s government job as a minor employee in the Defence Ministry.
    It turned out that Rupa too failed to conceive. Sona hid this fact as long as she could from her in-laws, she knew exactly the kind of comment it would elicit. Bad stock, tainted bloodlines. But concealment was useless, eventually these things were said.
    ‘Why don’t you ask Babaji for