One slip might find her alone, vulnerable and unprotected. The infinite ways in which she could be harmed were not specified, but Astha absorbed them through her skin, and ever after was drawn to the safe and secure. She was her parents’ only child. Her education, her character, her health, her marriage, these were their burdens. She was their future, their hope, and though she didn’t want them to guard their precious treasure so carefully, they did, oh they did. Her mother often declared, ‘When you are married, our responsibilities will be over. Do you know the shastras say if parents die without getting their daughter married, they will be condemned to perpetual rebirth?’ ‘I don’t believe in all that stuff,’ said Astha, ‘and I think, as an educated person, neither should you.’ Her mother sighed her heavy soul-killing sigh. ‘Who can escape their duty?’ she asked, as she put in a steel almirah another spoon, sheet, sari, piece of jewellery towards the girl’s future.
