Sunaina looked out at the pouring rain and felt the elation she had felt for the past two days draining away. No one would be able to travel in this torrent she thought, not even Sujata with her rock-strong will.

Two days ago when the telegram had arrived saying that Sujata was coming down to meet her she had not believed her eyes. Though they had been planning this visit over their letters for the past three months it seemed unbelievable that it would happen.

Once it sank in, she got into a frenzy trying to make her small home look its best. She had taken down all curtains and linen to the river for a rigorous wash.

The kitchen had been cleaned and the soot which had collected over years was scrubbed away in a matter of hours.

The children had looked on bewilderedly, as their mother who normally cursed under her breath while she went about the daily grind was heard humming an old Hindi film song.

Now all that seemed a waste since the rain looked like it would never stop and Sujata must have turned back towards her comfortable home in the city. It was a disappointment for sure but Sunaina was also secretly relieved.

Though her ministrations of the past two days had made the house look habitable there was no way she could hide the roof leaking in several places from her friend.

For the nth time, Sunaina cursed her timidity and lack of resources to visit Sujata in the city that would have ensured that the extent of her poverty and misfortune was kept hidden from her friend.

Though Sujata had poured out her heart and mind to Sunaina in letters which threatened to run into reams, Sunaina had spoken very little about herself, filling up the pages instead with news of their acquaintances and family.

Now Sujata was coming and nothing could be hidden any longer. Her husband’s absence from home for over two years was the village gossip and Sujata was bound to hear it from someone if not the children.

The thought of the children brought her out of her reverie, Sujata or no Sujata, the children needed to eat, it was late afternoon. She had made halwa puri and aloo sabzi the way Sujata used to love.

It had meant that she would have to spend her entire week’s ration money to buy the ingredients. And now if she distributed the food to the children, there’d be nothing in the house when Sujata came.

A loud noise in the kitchen made her run towards it and she found her youngest daughter clutching onto a plate and bawling her heart out. She picked up the child and shushed her. A promise of halwa puri got her to be quiet. The other two children came into the kitchen hearing her promises and she had to divide the food between the three hungry children.

The children had barely finished their meal licking their lips and fingers in glee for it was seldom that they got such treats that the horn of a vehicle shattered the peace.

The children rushed out, they had heard a hundred stories of Sujata Masi but nothing would contain their excitement of seeing her for the first time.

And so it happened that Sujata who was trying to navigate her way through the sludge found herself being stared at by three pairs of unbelieving eyes and that’s when it struck her how much she had changed since she last put her foot in this village.