Cell. The bright vermilion dot between her beautifully arched brows glows; I long to wear sindoor myself. Holding her face in my hands, I sang—

“In the midst of fragrant saffron, a single trembling drop of the eye—O Shanti, do you know what it is, the hundred-petaled lotus of union in the youthful lake?”

“Have you gone mad?”

“I want to learn to dance. At Shantiniketan, Rabindranath is teaching girls to dance.”

“Why don’t you go and learn?”

“As if it were that easy.” Would Baba ever let me? He would never allow me to go anywhere. I am imprisoned here—granted, imprisoned by affection, but no captivity is ever truly pleasant. Once, Rabindranath himself told me, “I will borrow you from your father for a few months. I am looking for someone for my play Malini. You could do it. Like Malini, you have a sky in your mind.”

“A sky in the mind”—such words I had never heard before. Until then, the sky was just the sky, but the moment I heard those words, it descended into my heart, its entire blue hue spreading within me. My soul filled with an indescribable joy. He is a magician of words; with words alone, he can gather clouds in the sky and bring down the Alakananda—he has no need for the Malhar raga. But did Baba let me go? He said, “Spend your life doing plays and theater, is that it? For a student, study is penance.”

“Look, Shanti, when I get married, when I am free, I will bring Sabita to my house and teach her to dance. No one will be able to stop me.”

I believed that marriage meant freedom for everyone. Of course, not if it was a marriage like Shanti’s. But who is truly free? Is my mother free? Not at all. What kind of marriage will I have? Mircea! Mircea! No, no, that will never happen. The circle’s thread will break. I clung to Shanti’s neck and began to cry. She was quite surprised, “Why are you crying? What will happen if you learn to dance? Or if you don’t?”

“It’s not for that. My heart feels so strange. It aches terribly.”

The large table lamp is burning, its shade like a big white bowl. On one side, I was leaning against the wicker sofa; on the other, Mircea sat on the bed, his legs stretched out. In that pose, his feet kept coming to my mind. I wanted to touch his feet—not with my feet, but with my hands. Oh, why should I want to touch his feet? He’s not that much older. Besides, he would be the one to touch my feet—if I sat with my face turned away like Radha, sulking, he would come to my feet, “Dehi padapallavamudaram”—that would be wonderful! Of course, I’m not really angry; it’s just that poem that makes me imagine such a scene. Reading the Gita Govinda, such images arise: Radha turns her face away, and Krishna bows at her feet. Krishna’s color is not dark, but fair. Our Brahmin priest sings—“What’s the use of sulking!” Now I am reading Jayadeva. I have received a book with a blue cover, with a picture drawn by Purna Chakravarti, and a Bengali translation. I don’t read the Bengali translation, of course—what need is there for such poetry? The Gita Govinda is understood as it is, though not every word. For example, “swargaralakhandaṇam”—what is ‘garal’? Where is poison in love?

To be honest, I don’t understand ‘Mahua’ either—Baba says there is a deep philosophical truth in the poem ‘Maya’ from Mahua, and he has explained it to me. But right now, I cannot focus on philosophical truths. I am understanding poetry in a different way now. Never before have I understood it so well. Every day I understand something new, but that poem from Mahua, “Let this moment be forever”—I cannot understand it. Why should this moment become forever, or why should I not have forever even in sorrow? Rather, I can understand, “We two shall not build toys of heaven on this earth”—I recited it to Mircea the other day. He was very...

I liked it.

I am looking at him—his face and eyes seem distracted, lost in thought—who knows what he is thinking about. If today he wants to read me Whitman, I won’t listen. That day he recited three poems, but they felt more like wooden sticks than poetry.

But today, Mircea isn’t thinking about literature. He doesn’t even want to read Bengali. He puts out his cigarette and pushes it into the ashtray, then looks at me sharply. After that, he takes off his glasses and wipes them—I can see his eyes without the glasses. When he takes them off, I get terribly anxious; his gaze changes—he seems like a different person. “Why can’t I bear it when you take off your glasses, Mircea?”

“It’s because I’m myopic.”

I worry so much about his eyes—what if he goes blind! He said, “Listen, I want to ask you something—will you marry me?”

I feel like laughing—so this is what they call a proposal—I’ve read about it in English storybooks. But it’s never done from so far away—one is supposed to kneel and hold hands. Nothing like that happened. Sitting seven feet away, he asks, “Will you marry me?” Oh dear!

The front door of this room opens right onto the main entrance of the house. People are always coming and going through here. There’s something hanging that’s supposed to be a curtain, but it’s so minimal, it might as well not be there—so, helpless!

On the piano, there’s a photo of his sister, a beautiful girl—I feel like befriending her. Mircea loves his sister the most. He said, “I’ve written to my mother and sister about you—they’ll be very happy. You won’t have any trouble at my home.”

Now my heart is trembling. There was a piece of paper and a pencil lying around, so I’m