She goes to tell the calves her news. From the cowshed, Janaki hears Sivakami talking to Vairum in the courtyard. Vairum is washing his hands at the well following his own morning meal.

“Have you given it any more thought, kanna?” asks Sivakami. “I think we must pledge another-”

“I never said we shouldn’t,” he cuts her off efficiently.

“I… okay, I’ll look up which is a good day.” Sivakami goes to take the almanac down from the ledge in the hall where it is kept, about six feet off the ground, so she must stand on a small stool to reach it. Janaki watches from the kitchen doorway.

“I want to do the puja at home, for our Ramar,” Vairum says, slowly now.

“Good, kanna.” Sivakami squints through the thick, wavy-paged book. “Next Friday is auspicious.” She spots Janaki. “That would also be a good day for Janaki to start school. Janaki-baby, we’ll do a puja for you to start school, next Friday.”

The tailor comes to take Janaki’s measurements. She starts to feel important.

Preparations begin for the puja. Supplies are bought for sweets, for example, and their manufacture begun.

The tailor returns to fit the uniform.

“Will I wear the uniform for my puja?” Janaki asks her grandmother.

“No, kanna, we do the puja for your uniform, your slate, your books, put it all in front of goddess Saraswati, right? Ask for her blessings so you will study well. You can wear your usual paavaadai, and then put on your uniform afterward.”

“Can I wear a silk paavaadai?”

“If you like, yes. You feel like wearing something special?”

“Yeah.”

Janaki was pretty sure she had heard her uncle and grandmother discussing a puja for the Ramar, not Saraswati. Things sometimes, often, change out of her hearing, hard as she tries to keep on top of all household developments. They must have decided it’s more appropriate to do the puja for Saraswati, the goddess of learning, all things considered. Yes, that must be it.

Friday morning arrives. As her grandmother returns from the Kaveri, Janaki awakens and informs Muchami she didn’t sleep a wink all night for excitement. She bathes and puts on a paavaadai, teal silk bordered in yellow. She hears her grandmother instructing Sita to bathe and dress, and reminding Vani, also, that today is the day of the puja. Vairum has gone to bathe at the river, something he does only on big occasions. This school matter is even bigger than she had realized, thinks Janaki. The uniform had been delivered the day before and is ready to be blessed, together with her slate, ink powder, writing stick and nib, paper, books and a new tiffin box engraved with her name, G. Janaki.

Sivakami sees her come in from her bath and asks, “All ready, Janaki? Come, the raahu kaalam, the inauspicious hour, has just ended and the good hours begun. Let us do your puja now, before the priest arrives.”

Janaki follows but doesn’t understand. “How can we do the puja before the priest comes and everyone is ready, Amma?”

“No, kanna.” Sivakami moves briskly into the hall. “Your puja, for school.”

Vairum is already before the gods, doing his regular morning prostrations and prayers, clothes and hair still wet from his bath.

Sivakami takes the brass plate on which Janaki’s small pile awaits, and dots a little vermilion powder on each item. Janaki shifts foot to foot, chewing on her lip, looking anxiously at the door where Sita has emerged from her bath. “Hurry up, Sita, my puja is starting.”

Sita slows down to a insolent saunter. “So?”

A look from Sivakami speeds her along.

Sivakami is lighting camphor and offering Janaki’s things along with flowers, sugar rock-candy, a coconut and a piece of turmeric. She prays to goddess Saraswati that Janaki will work hard, appreciate this great privilege and succeed. When they think the goddess has had enough time to grant them the blessing, the plate is set down and Janaki prostrates for the gods, her grandmother and uncle, and Sita, because she’s older than Janaki and happens to be present. From the gods, Janaki believes she receives benevolent approval. From her grandmother, she receives solid encouragement. Her uncle looks uninterested and skeptical but tells her to make the best of this and sounds like he expects to be obeyed. Sita lets Janaki get close before she whispers, “You’ll be a disaster.” She beams at her little sister, saccharine and malign.

Then Vani arrives to do her morning prayers, after which she sits and begins playing.

Laddu comes and sits to one side, morning-befuddled, but clean and dressed for a special occasion, and everyone else is clearly waiting for something more. Janaki sees Muchami in the garden and goes to the door. “My puja is over,” she tells him. “What is everyone waiting for?”

She spoke her question a little too loud. Everyone turns a puzzled look on her, except Sita, who hoots and cackles, “She thought everyone was dressing up because they were so excited that the little dimwit’s off to learn some learning!”

“Sita, stop that.” Sivakami turns toward the little girl. “We’re doing a puja for the Ramar, today, Kanna. Vairum Mama and Vani Mami are asking to be blessed with children. You forgot?”

Had Janaki known, she surely would not have forgotten. She has participated in many rituals already to this end and was especially enthusiastic about the one where Vani poured milk down snake holes.

A priest arrives as Janaki sulks in the garden door. The priest begins to set up the fire. He needs to start the puja within this hour and a quarter: one of the auspicious times that checkerboard the day. Sivakami bustles back and forth from the kitchen with things the priest needs as Vani plays on, more intensely and virtuosically than usual, though all Janaki can tell for sure is that it seems louder.

The priest does the preliminary incantations. Vairum comes and sits where he is directed to by the priest. Sita is sitting beside Laddu, looking disgusted. She whispers something to him and he shrinks like he’s been jabbed with a hot poker. Vani still plays. Janaki decides to go change into her uniform, but when she rises, Sivakami shakes her head. The priest looks at Sivakami and at Vairum; he’s done all he can do without Vani’s participation. They look back at him as though they don’t understand what he wants.

The priest turns to Vani but senses something about her that makes him unwilling to address her directly. So he casts another, more obviously plaintive glance at Vairum, who sighs and raises his eyebrows back. The priest points at the hourglass. They don’t have much time to get on with it. All the household watches with eyes narrowed as Vairum approaches the woman who should regard him as her lord.

As he crouches beside her, she gives no indication that she is aware of him. Finally, in a natural pause in the music, he says tentatively, “Ma?”

She launches passionately into the next movement of the improvisation, her left hand, above one gourd, strumming and plucking the melody, right hand, at the frets above the other gourd, stroking out the accompanying drone. Sita and Laddu break into vicious chuckles and don’t stop despite Vairum’s withering stare. Vairum flushes. He rises to standing, like a hawk poised in the air before a dive. Janaki, from her vantage point, sees his lips seal into a tiny knot.

Fwoosh-he stoops and catches Vani’s left wrist, arresting the melody.

Without breaking the drone sound, Vani’s right hand forms a fist and knocks him in the forehead. He falls, stunned, onto his bottom as he releases her wrist. She resumes her virtuosic swells. Now every eye in the room is open very wide, except Vairum’s, which are screwed shut. He keeps them that way as he rises and stumbles through Janaki’s doorway into the garden. She tucks her legs in so as not to trip him.

Only Janaki can see him as he leans his desecrated forehead against a young papaya tree. He stays that way for a very long time, while the notes climax and come to rest. Vani places her hands on her knees and takes one breath, staring at her instrument. Upon exhaling, she raises her head and her eyes come into focus. She gets up and seats herself in place for the puja. The priest awakens in a fluster from his own reverie, finds his place in the sloka book and begins to chant.