That night, Kamla woke up once but on noticing the baby snuggled up near her bosom, she yet again gave in to sleep. It was Yashoda who woke up multiple times to check on the family but on noticing that they were fast asleep, she too stopped peeping in after ensuring that the family was comfortable.

The next morning, it was still drizzling and there was pleasant greenery in the surrounding. The dried-up leaves that shrouded the trees were now replaced by new budding leaves as the impetus of rain not only discarded the dead remains but also gave life to the land. The farmers woke up early that day because the soil was now loosened up for the ox to plough it. The season of planting new crops was there.

The bliss was in the air but perhaps it was too incapable that the old mansion was in gloom. Saraswati Devi woke up early the next morning. With hardly any sleep provided the night prior, her already dark and wrinkled visage looked darker and haggard. Her dreams that night were infested with nightmares, mostly that involved her son Gopal and her newborn daughter. The entire mansion was sleeping that morning to catch up on the sleep they lost due to the fire last night but Saraswati Devi was too disturbed to get back to her room.

She once thought of visiting her son sleeping next door but his impetuous actions last night made her stop at her spot. Her anger was yet to be pacified and she made up her mind not to interact anymore with Gopal until he apologises for his behaviour.

Gopal Prasad who was unaware of his mother's decision was in felicity. Not only did he manage to keep his daughter with him but it was the mellifluous chirps of sparrows perched on the windowsill that started his next day. Stretching his body, Gopal took a wide yawn. His eyes were still teary due to the residual ashes from the night prior and there was an ache in his body but his overall mood was jolly.

Just when he was about to dismount the cot, the old wood let out a shrill creak waking up Kamla whose slumber had already lightened up after sleeping for a long time. Tilting her head, she noticed Gopal Prasad who was standing there with bent knees and biting his tongue. His comical reaction brought an arc on Kamla's lips as she was too afraid that if she would chuckle then it would destroy the serenity of the moment.

"Did I wake you up?" Gopal questioned but he already knew the answer. How else would Kamla wake up if not for the sound of the cot? Despite that, Kamla shook her head. Her eyes travelled to the baby tucked near her bosom by Yashoda earlier last night and then back to Gopal who was fondly smiling at the sight.

"Our third child was too impatient that she entered the world before the time of her arrival," Kamla's voice was cracked but the joy in the sentence eclipsed the hoarseness and made it pleasant for Gopal's ears.

"I wonder if she would be well behaved like Pratibha or make us lose our sleep at night due to her cries like Maheshwari," She continued, her hand petting the head of the child who was still asleep.

Though the statement was random from Kamla's side, it sent a shiver down the spine of Gopal. He realised that his wife was yet to be told truth about the child but the arc of her lips made it tougher to break the news to her.

The heart of Gopal was plunged into a puddle of fears. Not only was he afraid of his wife's reaction but the pain she would have to bear due to the muteness of their progeny. The time they lived in didn't empathise much with people with disability and often frowned upon such people if not completely ignoring their presence. The people still lived with the belief that the affliction is due to their sin from the past life and the specially-abled deserved every pain bestowed on them due to a very obscure term 'Karma'.

Being an educated person, Gopal knew that such beliefs were myths but the question forth him was, would a barely literate Kamla understand this? He was not willing to take risks but with the current situation he was in, what else could he do apart from informing Kamla?

Taking a deep sigh, Gopal tentatively sat back on the cot, shifting his daughter away from Kamla just in case she tries to do something immoral to the child in rage. Noticing his silence and the gloom on his face, Kamla frowned. There were hardly many instances when Gopal acted like this in front of her and due to this, a premonition knocked on Kamla's mind that something was wrong but she could hardly do anything apart from waiting for Gopal to clear things up.

"Is something wrong?" She muttered and tried to shift closer to Gopal who stopped her with the nudge of his one hand.

"Kamla. . ." Gopal trailed not knowing how to break the news to her but this only made Kamla's curiosity grow up.

"Have I done something wrong?"

"No, I have to tell you something regarding our child," Gopal interjected Kamla's thoughts that were trying to contemplate what exactly was going on.

He heaved yet again and looked into his wife's eyes trying to seek confidence or perhaps trying to soak her reaction to the information he was about to relay to her. His lips wobbled as he parted them several times to articulate a sentence but words failed him again and again. He no longer felt as eloquent as he was at the court and perhaps in front of his mother last night to save his child.

His emotions were shrouding his mind and he was unable to make a coherent sound except for occasional hums. Kamla who was growing impatient after analysing his expressions pressed her lips and eyed their daughter to check if anything is wrong with her or if she was in any sort of discomfort.

"What about our child?" She was no longer able to retain her worries and nudged Gopal Prasad to rush his words.

Fisting his palms, Gopal yet again tried to accumulate his strength and finally blurted out, "Our child is mute."

Since his words were rushed and the baritone of the word 'mute' was barely above a whisper, Kamla thought she misheard her husband else how could he say that the child was mute? Shaking her head, she scrunched her brows as if waiting for Gopal to repeat his sentence.

Speaking the fact again didn't make it any easier for Gopal. His throat felt parched and his gaze now was hardly able to make contact with Kamla's orbs that contain bafflement in them. Every passing second made it difficult for him to be there, he felt an urgency to leave the place and hide somewhere to evade telling the truth to Kamla but alas, he could hardly move from his spot.

His courage was fleeting but he grasped onto it like a child who grasped upon their mother's bosom for support and mumbled out again, " I know this is a harsh reality but Kamla, our child would be unable to speak. The midwife confirmed her condition last night and this is the bitter truth that we have to live with that we would never hear our child uttering any words."

Kamla blinked for a few seconds, her throat felt choked. With wobbling lips and quivering fingers, she tried to reach out for her child who was still sleeping. The vines of fear coiled around her heart that seemed to have skipped a bit on knowing the truth. Her body felt limp and her eyes glassy. Though no tears accrued in her eyes, her body felt numb as if plunged into the deepest corner of the sea of sorrow.

Her brain was still trying to contemplate the piece of information she just received and every breath she took created a crack in her picture of having a perfect that she always painted in her mind. A plethora of emotions splashed on her face, making Gopal confounded about how to approach his wife whom he was married for seven years now; the silence poisoned them into strangers for a transient moment. Her silence was gnawing his heart but unlike his mother, he somehow feared his daughter's future in case Kamla decided to discard her.

Being the child's mother she held more rights than Gopal on how to raise their daughter and even if she refused to accept the infant, Gopal could hardly do anything about it.

While Gopal was dreading the consequences, Kamla's mindset was a mesh that Gopal was unable to unsnarl. According to him, Kamla's reaction would more or less be like her mother, tangled in the mirage of auspiciousness and inauspiciousness but one thing that he was unable to comprehend was the element of motherhood whose power he had hardly experienced in his adult life.

Sure despondency crawled on the very being of Kamla but along that an inconspicuous vine of self-loathing too was intervened in the gloom leaving no space to garner any blame for the child. While her one hand was reaching out for her daughter as if she was Kamla's moonlight, the sting on other hand was very much comprehensible to Kamla due to the nails digging onto the flesh of the palms. The concoction of sorrow and self-blame was enough for Kamla to germinate various musings, some that were fleeting but left a whimsical aftertaste in her heart while others were too forbidden to ever be spoken.

The tips of Kamla's eyes turned red and so was the case with the tip of her nose. With a shaky breath, she tried to say something but she found she had nothing to say except stare at the face of her daughter who was snoozing in her father's embrace. Kamla wanted to touch her child, trying to make sure it is not some sick illusion that she was there and with just one caress, a tear trickled down her eyes.

The lone tear from Kamla's eyes was corroding the courage of Gopal, besmearing his heart with the ruinous presence of melancholy. He tried to evade them but like the shivers he received from the cold winds of rain, he was unable to elude them. He was braided into the twist of his destiny and the only thing he could do was be a spectator of the events.

A muffled sob escaped Kamla's lips and she was finding it hard to breathe. There was a slight sting in her eyes but she didn't dare to look away from her daughter. There was also a lingering fear that if she would even mistakenly meet Gopal's eyes, she would be accused of birthing an imperfect child.

She knew from their conversation earlier that despite Gopal favoured sons, he was content with daughters too but a daughter who was mute, was he ready to accept the child? Even if he did, would he forgive her to bring a tarnished being into their life? Several questions blotched the mind of Kamla but they were hardly about the well-being of her daughter.

With trembling hands, she joined them to beg for Gopal's forgiveness. No words were exchanged, the room held two familiar strangers who were unaware of the sorrow of the other as their minds were already besmirched with fear; a shade of fear that was entirely different from the shade splayed on the heart of the other occupant of the room.

Gopal parted her palms with a gentle nudge refusing the apology for how could he blame his wife for anything that happened last night? His benevolence though was misunderstood by Kamla as took it as a rupture in their relationship. She had brought a stigma into their union so it was fair for her husband to refuse her apology for he would be the one to face the world along with this blighted daughter of hers.

Her ruminations reached the possible mockery her family would have to face and the avertable quandaries of the future. If only her child was healthy like any other child, these issues would have been avoided but now, since this was not possible, obscurity stained the fortune of the family.

Then another thought registered in her mind, the hurdles she would have to face in the family itself due to this mute daughter. The dissatisfaction on their faces flashed forth her eyes and for a brief moment, she felt ashamed to face them. How would she even present her flawed daughter in front of Saraswati Devi who already had more than half a dozen exemplary grandkids; she would discard both her and her daughter with just a wave of her hand. She feared this future, her toes curled up as she hugged her folded legs, sobbing on her knees.

The plain green saree she wore was crumpled due to her grasp and while her bitter sobs resonated in the room, it was also a herald of a message to Gopal Prasad that his wife was wounded by the presence of the child. He mourned for the fate of his daughter who was denied the shower of a mother's love but he had no other option but to let his wife bewail the death of their imagined future.

The room felt crowded to both elders present in the room, so, with a sigh, Gopal left the place but not before keeping the child next to the weeping mother. It was an indication, a right passed to Kamla that whatever her decision is for the offspring, it would be accepted without any contradiction.

Soon steps of the father departed the place, leaving to embrace the shower of nature to tend to his ailing heart wounded by his wife's tears and mutilated by the wretched destiny that decided to withdraw the ability of speech from his daughter.

The doors were left open but the question in the room remained, would Kamla's heart still has doors parted to accept her daughter?