‘Oh, when was that?’

  ‘More than three years ago, as I recall. Varsha had not been born yet.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you’re here now,’ said Abhay with a smile. ‘The whole family is waiting for you.’

  Despite Abhay’s good-natured smile and polite bearing, Shoma got the feeling that he was under a good deal of strain—and she understood why when he led her into his parents’ austerely furnished sitting room. Assembled inside, along with HH, his wife and Dipika, were Abhay’s older brother, Subodh, and his wife. Their faces were uniformly glum and the atmosphere in the room was tense and heavy: Shoma sensed that she had interrupted an argument.

  After a perfunctory exchange of greetings the Guptas began to pepper Shoma with questions, the most aggressive of which came from Subodh Gupta: a pear-shaped man with a protuberant paunch, dressed in the standard uniform of Calcutta’s entrepreneurial class—an ochre-coloured safari suit—with a row of gilded pens glinting in the breast pocket. Although he was several years older than Abhay, he gave the impression of being the same age, if not younger, because his thinning hair was dyed jet black, as was the caterpillar-like moustache that clung to his upper lip.

  It soon became clear that Subodh Gupta’s most pressing concern was confidentiality. Their family had been having trouble with their labour unions, he said, and they didn’t need any domestic secrets leaking out: it was absolutely imperative that no one should know the family was consulting a psychotherapist because of Varsha.

  ‘Please don’t worry about that,’ said Shoma. ‘Confidentiality is sacred in my profession. I should also explain that in the kind of therapy that I practice, we don’t use the word “patient” because of the stigma that is sometimes associated with it. We prefer to say “client”, and I can assure you that I have the utmost regard for the privacy of my clients.’

  And then, sensing that doubts still lingered in the minds of some members of the family, Shoma offered to take a vow of confidentiality, but with the proviso that she would be free to discuss the case with her husband since he already knew about Varsha’s condition, and was her paediatrician. This seemed to reassure the family. Abhay said there was no need for a vow; they would take her word for it that she would never mention this matter to anyone other than her husband.

  Once that had been settled, HH asked whether it was true that Shoma had some experience in dealing with cases like Varsha. Shoma confirmed that she had indeed worked with one of the world’s leading authorities on ‘cases of the reincarnation type’, a highly regarded American professor.

  No sooner had she said this than Dipika began to wipe away tears, demanding to know why Shoma had already assumed Varsha to be a ‘case’? Wasn’t it possible that she was unwell or had been hallucinating?

  With every eye trained on her, Shoma explained that neither she nor Monty had detected any signs of illness in Varsha. On the contrary, she had seemed perfectly cogent when she narrated her memories of her past life.

  ‘Moreover, Varsha’s memories are quite detailed,’ said Shoma. ‘She talked about living in a hut that was separated from a river by an embankment. The hut had a straw roof that was repaired every year, she said. These are things that no city child would know anything about.’

  Varsha’s grandmother gasped. ‘Then you think it’s true that in this other life Varsha was a poor fisherwoman who lived in a mud hut?’

  As gently as she could Shoma said, ‘That’s certainly the life she seems to be remembering. She even knows the name of a kind of fish that would be unfamiliar to most Bengali children her age.’

  At this Dipika looked stricken, as if a mortal illness had been announced. ‘But what evidence do you have for all this?’ she asked, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘Varsha could have made up a story; children love to tell stories.’

  ‘I don’t see how she could make up a story about a Bengali village. Has she ever visited one?’

  ‘No,’ Dipika admitted grudgingly. ‘She’s never been anywhere except Ahmedabad and Calcutta.’

  ‘Yet she seems familiar with rural Bengali life, doesn’t she? And the interesting thing is that when she was talking about her village she switched to a dialect of Bangla that even I barely understood at times.’

  HH and his wife exchanged meaningful glances. ‘Yes, that is very peculiar,’ the grandmother acknowledged, her eyes widening behind her gold-rimmed glasses. ‘It was strange enough when Varsha began to speak Bengali at an early age, and now you say she also speaks a dialect?’

  Shoma nodded and proceeded to explain that it was not uncommon for ‘cases of the reincarnation type’ to exhibit inexplicable linguistic abilities, and that Dr Ian Stevenson, a professor, had written many papers on this subject.

  At this point Dipika broke down completely and began to sob, covering her face with her hands. The old lady leaned over and rubbed her back solicitously. ‘Bechari. This is a difficult time for her,’ she explained to Shoma. ‘Dipika is very worried about the riots in Ahmedabad; one of her father’s warehouses was burnt down the other day. And now, on top of that, there’s this thing with Varsha.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s very hard for all of you,’ Shoma murmured. And then, in an effort to console the distraught family, Shoma said that it was very likely that Varsha would soon forget her past life. The bulk of the academic research on such cases suggested that these memories usually began to fade around the age of five and were often completely gone by the time the child reached adolescence.

  ‘You really have nothing to worry about,’ said Shoma. ‘You just need to be patient for a year or two. It’s very likely that these memories will be forgotten by the time she’s five or six.’

  ‘But how will we manage until then?’ said the grandmother. ‘What if Varsha continues to ask for fish? She’s already gone without food for a day and a half.’

  Once again, Shoma tried to reassure the Guptas by telling them that such cases, where the children remembered foods from their past lives, were not uncommon, and that many families dealt with such demands by satisfying the child’s cravings.

  However, instead of reassuring the elderly couple this only deepened their gloom. ‘The problem,’ said the grandmother, ‘is that even if we agreed to let Varsha eat fish, how would we go about it? None of us has any idea where to get fish. And no matter what, we could never allow it to be cooked in the house.’

  ‘Maybe I could be of help? My husband had a suggestion …’ Shoma said hesitantly.

  ‘Please go ahead, Dr Bose,’ said Abhay.

  The Guptas listened with keen attention as Shoma told them about Monty’s idea. When she finished, Abhay said, ‘Let me get this right: you would bring over some rice and fish in a tiffin carrier? And you would feed her in your car, outside our compound?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Shoma. ‘That’s what my husband suggested.’

  ‘I suppose we could try that,’ said Abhay.

  ‘What!’ The word exploded out of Subodh Gupta’s mouth. ‘Abhay, you can’t be serious! How can you even think of letting Varsha eat fish?’

  Turning on his heel, Abhay confronted his brother directly. ‘What should we do then?’ he asked in a tight, angry voice. ‘Let Varsha starve?’

  ‘Bas! Enough!’ HH rose unsteadily to his feet and placed himself between his sons. ‘We need to discuss this amongst ourselves before we come to a decision.’

  Shoma decided that it was time for her to leave. As she reached for her handbag, she said, ‘Yes, talk it over amongst yourselves. And in the meantime, for all we know, it’s quite possible that Varsha will relent and call off her hunger strike.’

  Shoma had planned to walk back from the Gupta house to Tavoy since Dev had taken Monty to Howrah in their car. On hearing this Abhay offered to drive her home himself, and Shoma couldn’t think of any reason not to accept.

  As he was putting his car in gear Abhay said, ‘You must find it strange, Dr Bose, that my family has responded so negatively to Varsha’s revelations. After all, as Hindus, we are taught that reincarnation is just a fact of life. Then why should anyone be shocked?’

  ‘Actually, Mr Gupta,’ said Shoma, ‘your family’s reaction is not at all unusual.’

  One of the surprising findings of the academic research in this field, she went on to explain, was that even for people who accepted reincarnation as a metaphysical or religious truth—which included not just Hindus, Jains and Buddhists, but also some indigenous groups like the Druze of Syria and various Native American tribes—the occurrence of such a case within their own families was quite distressing.

  ‘And with Varsha,’ Shoma added, ‘we have to remember that her memories are of a life that was completely different from her present circumstances in every sense: caste, community, economic status, dietary habits and so on. In such instances it’s quite common for families to react very adversely.’

  ‘Is that so?’ asked Abhay in surprise. ‘Does that mean that there are many such cases?’

  Shoma nodded. There were many such cases, especially in India, of children being reborn in different castes or communities, sometimes in the same town or village, and sometimes in places that were hundreds, even thousands, of kilometres from where they had lived in their past lives. Nobody knew why one case was so different from another. Although a good deal of research had been done on the subject, the data showed no distinguishable patterns in these matters: it was all very random and inexplicable, like picking numbers out of a hat.

  ‘I suppose,’ said Shoma, ‘that’s one of the reasons why the idea of karma was invented—to try to make some sense of chains of rebirth, to impose some kind of order on something that doesn’t seem to follow any rules.’

  ‘Are you saying you don’t believe in karma?’ asked Abhay, raising an eyebrow.

  Shoma shook her head. What she believed personally wasn’t important, she told him. It was just that the data didn’t support the idea that people could earn themselves a better future life by accumulating merit and doing good deeds in this one. What the research showed, in fact, was that a disproportionate number of such cases were the result of violent deaths. In other words, ‘cases of the reincarnation type’ often remembered past lives that had ended because of murder, suicide, war, plane crashes, accidents, animal attacks and so on—it was as if people whose lives had been cut abruptly short were seeking to come back into the world. It was one of the few discernible patterns in such cases.

  ‘Varsha’s case also conforms to this pattern, doesn’t it,’ said Shoma, ‘since her past life seems to have been ended by a snakebite?’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Abhay. ‘But the thing I don’t understand is what happens between one life and another. Where do they—where do we—come back from? Is there some unknown, unseen place where we go to wait for our next chance?’

  ‘That’s the big question,’ Shoma replied with a smile. ‘What happens between one life and another? I wish I knew. It’s a mystery—and that is exactly why people react so negatively when such cases occur in their families. They’re suddenly forced to ask questions that would never arise otherwise. That is why Dipika is finding it so hard to deal with this situation. I think I would too if I were in her shoes.’

  ‘Yes, it has been very hard for Dipika,’ said Abhay. Then, clearing his throat, he added, hesitantly: ‘Actually, Dr Bose, I had a request for you. I am a little worried about Dipika. She’s always been moody—sometimes upbeat and sometimes down in the dumps for long stretches—and this has grown worse since Varsha was born. And now, with Varsha saying that Dipika isn’t her real mother, I think there’s a real danger that she might become seriously depressed. I feel it might help if she could talk to you.’

  ‘Are you asking if I will take her on as a client?’

  ‘Yes, exactly.’

  ‘I could certainly do that,’ said Shoma. ‘But you must understand that it would be on a strictly professional basis. Which means that Dipika would have the same right to confidentiality as any of my other clients—in other words, I will not be able to tell you anything she says to me in my professional capacity.’

  Of course, that goes without saying,’ said Abhay. ‘So when do you think you could see her?’

  ‘Let me have a look.’ Pulling her diary out of her handbag, Shoma said, ‘I have an opening tomorrow at eleven-thirty if that’s convenient for Dipika.’

  ‘I’ll suggest it to her, and let you know. Thank you for considering it.’

  Just as Shoma was walking into the courtyard at Tavoy, the electricity suddenly went off all over the neighbourhood, leaving her immured in total darkness. Since no one was at home, there was not a glimmer of light anywhere around her until she switched on the small battery-powered torch that she always carried in her handbag.

  Shoma went upstairs and turned on a neon tube light that was powered by an inverter made of stacks of car batteries: the jerry-built contraption supported only a couple of lights and fans, and that too for no more than a few hours at a time. Shoma used it sparingly, preferring to conserve its scant reserves of energy for the ceiling fans; even now she kept the tube light on for only as long as it took her to light a few candles. She made her way to the dining room where Husna had laid out her dinner. As she seated herself at the table, flickering shadows appeared on the walls, and when she began to eat it was as if there were dark presences all around her, mimicking her every movement.

  After clearing the table Shoma went to the master bedroom and switched on the fan. Then, knowing that Monty would not be back till midnight or later, she crawled under the mosquito net and lay in bed, reading by torchlight, while the ceiling fan lazily churned the air, making the netting billow and ripple like a windblown sail. In a while she switched off the torch and drifted off to sleep, watching the white fabric sway and heave restlessly around her, conjuring up all kinds of shapes and forms like a moving Rorschach test.

  The next thing she knew she was being shaken awake by Monty. ‘Shoma! What’s the matter?’

  She sat up and looked wildly around her, until at last her eyes settled on Monty’s frowning, alarmed face. ‘You’re back,’ she said dully.

  ‘Yes. You were asleep when I got home so I didn’t wake you. And then suddenly, a few minutes ago, you started crying out and thrashing about.’

  Shoma wiped her face on the sleeve of her nightdress. ‘I had a dream … a nightmare.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘I thought I saw Varsha over there,’ she said, pointing to the side of the mosquito net that faced her pillow. ‘I saw her face outlined by the netting; it was as if she were watching me through a veil.’

  Monty scowled. ‘That’s not too bad as nightmares go. Nothing to be spooked about.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Shoma shook her head as if to rid herself of the dream. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Six in the morning.’

  ‘Time to get up anyway.’

  As she was climbing out of bed, Shoma’s eyes fell on the bindings that secured the net to the bedpost. ‘Look, Monty!’ she cried. ‘Look at the string over there—there are three knots in it. I don’t remember seeing them before.’

  ‘Shoma!’ Monty chided. ‘Of course there are knots in the string. That’s what it’s there for—to hold up the net. It has to be tied, doesn’t it?’

  Shoma began to chew her lip. ‘It’s just that when I went into Varsha’s room yesterday, she was playing with a piece of string, tying knots. Her ayah said that she’s been doing that a lot lately.’

  ‘What does that have to do with our mosquito net?’ said Monty in astonishment. ‘Shoma, get a grip on yourself—’

  Monty was interrupted by a loud thumping on the stairwell door. He went to see who it was and came back looking puzzled. ‘It was Dev,’ he said. ‘He wanted to know if you were all right.’

  Shoma stared at him. ‘You mean he knew I had had a nightmare? How is that possible?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Monty shrugged. ‘Let’s go and sit on the veranda; it’s nice and cool out there.’

  ‘I just can’t stop thinking about that dream,’ Shoma said, sinking into her easy chair. ‘To be honest, it didn’t even feel like a dream; it was as if Varsha was really there, watching me through the mosquito net.’

  ‘Now, now Shoma,’ said Monty. ‘You’re just imagining all this.’

  Outside, as happened every day at dawn, municipal workers were washing the street with hosepipes, and in the distance, across the lake, vultures were slowly taking wing, rising into the sky, one by one, on an upwelling early morning thermal.

  Monty, meanwhile, was leaning over the veranda’s balustrade, waiting for the newspaper boy to throw up the two dailies, English and Bangla, that were delivered to them daily, both rolled into stiff batons and secured with strings made of coconut husk. Monty liked to think that if he succeeded in catching even one of the papers in mid-air, the day would be off to a good start. As for the occasions when he caught both, he would radiate good cheer all day.

  ‘Ah, there he is!’ cried Monty, and a moment later two paper batons came flying up, one of which he managed to snatch out of the air while the other landed directly in Shoma’s lap.

  ‘Well, at least I got The Statesman first for once,’ Monty consoled himself as he sat down.

  ‘Oh my god!’ cried Shoma looking down at her copy of the Anandabazar Patrika. ‘The riots in Ahmedabad are getting worse and worse. A Muslim man was burnt alive by a mob.’ Thrusting the page at Monty, she mumbled to herself, ‘I don’t think Dipika’s going to make it today.’

  ‘Were you planning to see Dipika today?’

  ‘Abhay Gupta asked me if I would talk to her and I agreed. But they haven’t confirmed, and I doubt it’s going to happen with all this going on.’

  ‘So how did it go at the Guptas’ yesterday?’ said Monty, with a sideways glance. ‘Did you ask them if it might be possible for you to feed Varsha in the car?’

  Shoma nodded. ‘I did tell the Guptas about your idea. They were revolted by the very thought of it … all of them, with the exception of Abhay Gupta. I got the impression that he’s very different from the rest of the family.’