Madhulika decided to visit the temple again the next day. She had to tell Pundit ji that she'd started working on the murtis, which would be ready by Diwali. When she told Nakul about her plan over breakfast, he looked surprised.

"Pundit ji asked you to make them? But...he isn't in Bhabra right now."

"What?"

"The priest of the Rama-Sita temple beside the river has gone to Kashi, something about studying the Rig Veda, he said he will return after Diwali only. I didn't know there was a pundit in the temple right now."

Madhu thought back to when she had first bumped into that pundit, or mechanic, for he had told her that he was just a servant of Rama. "I think he's just a religious person taking care of the temple while the priest is not here, he's also papa's old friend you know?"

Nakul slowly nodded, brows still furrowed in confusion. Quickly shovelling down the rest of his poha, he got up. "Do you mind if I join you? I have some work there too."

"Yeah of course." Madhu wondered what work Nakoo might have there, but she wasn't complaining about the idea of spending the morning with him, for on most days he preferred to lock himself inside his workshop.

She caught herself wanting to skip back to the room to change, which was ridiculous. She was almost thirty, yet she was acting like a giddy teenager. But yesterday, he had showed a completely different side of himself. Thinking about the way he had looked at her in awe when Madhu had won the pebble skipping game, or the memory of his warm hand over hers when he helped her get acquainted with Gayatri made pleasant jitters run down her back.

Madhu reminded herself that they were just friends. And that was what they'd ever be. Nakul had made it quite clear that he rejected a government job just to stay and help out in Bhabra, and Madhu's life was back in Delhi. Roshan had been partly right when he said things couldn't work out between them, though of course caste wasn't the reason.

However, even the sobering voice in her head wasn't able to dampen Madhu's mood. So, when she met Nakul outside on the porch, holding a large cardboard box, her lips tilted in a genuine smile that he returned.

They made their way to the temple, walking through the thin crowd of the bazaar. He had ditched the aid, so when Madhu offered to help with the box, he didn't reply for he wasn't facing her.

It was still a pleasant walk though, and it took half an hour for them to reach the steps of the ghat inside the temple compound. While Madhu removed her shoes to step in, intending to offer prayers, Nakul started walking around it after saying a quiet, "See you in a minute."

She found the friendly Pundit inside the surprisingly well-lit shrine, sitting on the floor in a meditative posture, right before the murtis of Lord Rama, his wife Sita, brother Lakshman and Lord Hanuman. They were always crafted together in a set. Though the temple was dedicated to Lord Rama and Ma Sita, it also housed the murtis of several other deities, including those of Lakshmi-Ganesh from last Diwali. Several bells were hanging at the entrance and Madhu stretched out her arm above her to sound the largest of them.

He didn't stir, which was understandable given that plenty of people came in to pray every day, as indicated by the fresh flowers and oil-filled lamps before every murti. Madhu went around the room, praying to them all before finally returning to the centre and sitting beside the pundit.

He didn't open his eyes, and at this point, Madhu wasn't even surprised when he started talking to her. "Have you finally decided to sell the house?"

She was taken aback. Roshan's visit the day before had been a painful reminder of her impending decision, but she hadn't arrived at it yet. "I think I would, at this point. I can't build a resort here, the place it too isolated. But I intend to ensure that every labourer of my father's estate gets a better job. Also, I've started working on the murtis like you had asked."

He didn't reply, and instead got up to the platform placed right in front of Lord Rama. Dipping his ring finger in the vermillion liquid in a container, he came back to sit next to her before pressing the same finger between her brows, blessing her.

"Umm... Kaka?" Madhu tentatively questioned when he remained quiet.

"Pawan," he eventually said.

"What?"

"My name is Pawan Lal," he elaborated. "You were asking the other day, right? And I think you're underestimating your potential. Your concerns and actions are noble, yes, but this isn't the best you can do for Bhabra."

Madhu bit her lip, feeling empty at his obvious disappointment. "I'm still here till Diwali, five more weeks before I have to say goodbye to my ancestral village."

"And how does that make you feel?"

"Honestly? Pretty grateful that I get to spend time here before it's all over. But this isn't my place, my family is back in Delhi."

"Well I hope you're telling the truth." He lifted his portly frame from the ground again, dusting his dhoti as he did so. "Meanwhile, I'll have a month to convince you to change your mind." His unnervingly serious face broke into its usual, fatherly smile.

Before Madhu could think of a reply, he walked out, leaving her alone in the shrine. She turned around and tried to meditate, but it was difficult to gather her thoughts, and she ended up absently staring at the divine images in front of her. Giving up, she decided to find Nakul.

Tracing his steps, she walked around the temple, only to find a small room there, made from the same material as that of the temple, probably supposed to be used by the priest. Its door was open, and Madhu saw Nakul standing inside.

A gasp escaped her when she went in, for the entire room was filled with shelves. Shelves that were crammed with books. There were religious books of course, but there were also books of science, language, basic math and even stories. Reaching out for the nearest shelf, her fingers gripped around the dusty spine of a well-worn copy of Premchand's Godan, the Hindi novel looking so fragile that Madhu was afraid it might disintegrate into dust if she clutched it too tight. She was about to replace it when its cover fell down, revealing the name Mahima inked on the top right corner of the front page. She felt his presence before Nakul came into view, picking the book up and wordlessly fixing it with cello tape.

"What is this place?" Madhulika asked him, when he was finished mending her mother's book.

"It was the priest's lodgings before he got married and started living with his wife on the other side of the village." He folded the empty cardboard box he had carried there and held it under his arm. "After getting elected, Sunanda, Brigesh babu's daughter in law, wanted to open a small school here." He gestured in the general direction of the empty ground behind the temple. "We've just started collecting books and other material. Thakur sahib allowed me to move some of your mother's books here when I asked him."

Madhu nodded, her throat clogging when she thought about how happy it would've made her mother to see her collection being put to good use. While she was destroying her friend's life back in Delhi, Nakul and this Sunanda woman were doing whatever they could to improve her family's village.

You're underestimating your potential...this isn't the best you can so for Bhabra.

Their walk back to the house felt far longer. Once again, her mind started replaying the conversation with Roshan, with Pundit ji and with what Nakoo had told her. Her stomach coiled with uneasiness, and Madhu couldn't help but doubt herself.

Would selling her property also mean selling the fate of the people who worked for her? Can she even help anyone by not selling it? Who was she to change anything about Bhabra? She was practically an outsider.

She was so distracted that she bumped into Nakoo when he stopped abruptly, not noticing the huge crowd which had gathered right in front of them, in the middle of the bazaar.

Nakul pushed his way through, and Madhu followed behind, all air escaping her lungs when they reached the centre.

A shabby-looking man was lying on the ground. Rags covered his bony frame, with prominent bruises marking every surface of his visible skin, and fresh-looking blood clotting underneath his nose. He looked like a beggar, the kind of beggar she would ignore on the street because he was an adult with all his limbs intact.

But right now, he looked like he needed all the help he could get as he laid limp on the dusty ground, surrounded by a cluster of yelling people. They were all average villagers, poor farmers with small landholdings and common shopkeepers from the bazaar, talking loudly amongst themselves about teaching someone a lesson, presumably the man groaning in pain. Words like "thief" and "kidnapper" were being thrown around time and again. It was only when Nakul helped the man on his feet that they noticed the two of them, falling silent except for the occasional hiss of a whisper.

"What's going on?" Madhu asked the crowd at large, her commanding voice, the one she generally saved for boardroom meetings, carrying across the terse silence. She knew that the villagers recognised her, they had been gossiping about her all week. Besides, pretty much everyone here was a friend of Nakul's, which was why most of them looked betrayed when he helped the accused thief.

They all started shouting again, and it was becoming difficult to make out their words. Madhu recognised a vaguely familiar man, realising a second later that he was one of the two people who had given her a lift on his bullock-cart when she had to drop Kamal to his house. She yelled for silence and requested that man to explain instead.

She felt Nakoo coming back to stand beside her, still supporting the injured man, as the bullock-cart guy started speaking. "Seven cows and three goats have gone missing this month. Rakhi's boy," he paused, pointing at a flower woman who put up shop right in front of the temple, "also disappeared for two whole days, before we found him in the forest, alone and shivering. He said a strange man had kidnapped him. This man."

The man in question started shaking when everyone aggressively muttered in agreement. "I didn't do that! I only stole some food!"

Nakul furrowed his brows. "How do you know he is the kidnapper?"

The bullock-cart guy shrugged. "We caught him stealing grain today. Who else could it be?"

"Kidnapping children and animals is very different from stealing grains. We have no proof he did both those things; you can't take the law into your own hands." Madhu wasn't exactly fond of how preachy her words sounded, but somebody needed to point out the obvious.

Loud mutters broke out again as the villagers looked at her with disdain.

"...rich girl..."

"...privileged..."

"...police shoo us away..."

"Why should we respect the law when it has never helped us before?" asked a hunched old man Madhu recognised was one of the many people working for her estate. "Poor people who had their animals stolen have lost their livelihoods."

Truth rang in his words. Back home people tended to trivialise the importance of cattle, they called it an uneducated fascination with cows. Yet Madhu had learnt that for an average farmer, losing cattle was equivalent to getting fired without a recommendation letter. In some cases, it simply meant starvation.

She suspected they were also right about the inaction of the police. Even Champa hadn't heard anything back after filing her complaint. But at least all these villagers had each other for support. Their unity only reminded Madhu of how alone people like Champa were in their struggles.

"I understand that," Nakul said eventually, after getting the bullock-cart guy to repeat the old man's question. "But if there's even a slight chance this man didn't do all that, then we have to trust the police to find out who the real culprit is."

After much argument, more reasoning and whole lot of muttering, the police was called using a telephone operated by the bazaar's paan and chewing gum shop. Madhu and Nakul waited around for three hours along with the rest of the villagers, with Madhu filling him in on everything she had said to pacify the angry crowd, since he had not been facing her. It was only when her wristwatch showed forty minutes past noon that they spotted a khaki-uniformed officer slowly paddling towards them on a cycle.

"A new station was opened just last month in the neighbouring village. It's merely an hour away by cycling." Thinly veiled anger laced Nakul's words. "If he was in the army he would've been dismissed after court martial for responding so late."

Madhu herself was disgusted at the way he was leering at Rakhi when she described the kidnapping of her child, even laughing when he heard about the stolen cattle. "First a burnt goat and now stolen cows. Do you think we have nothing better to do than to enquire after dumb animals? Why can't you just learn how to breed your cattle? With the number of runts here, you all should know everything about multiplying eh?"

His crude words grated on Madhu's ears, and she didn't miss the way he was looking pointedly at the belly of a pregnant woman. She was about to snap back when she felt Nakul's warm hand taking hers, silently willing her to look at him and repeat what the officer had said. Once he was in the loop, Madhulika felt his grip tighten, but to her surprise, he didn't say anything and simply continued to observe the scene before them.

The villagers protested his remarks, the undercurrent of indignation and rage in their combined voices wiping the disgusting smirk off his face. The weight in Madhu's stomach lessened as she witnessed them passionately fighting for their rights.

Eventually, the officer had to reluctantly agree to let the bullock-cart guy accompany him back to the police station for filing a formal complaint. Roughly shoving the accused thief on the back seat of his bicycle, he got ready to leave after the representative of the villagers mounted his cart.

Before they could leave though, Nakul went up to him and whispered something in his ear, something that was enough to make the officer turn red and curse at him, even attempt a punch that Nakul easily blocked.

It was only when they were having dinner that evening that Madhu enquired what exactly Nakul had told the officer.

He grinned. "I told him that his zipper was open the whole time."

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