WARNING: READ PART ONE FIRST
A whole month passed before Shiv was allowed to see his new cousin. Her hazel eyes were as deep as Dal Lake, her skin as soft as the snow on the mountains, her hair as dark as the night sky. She reminded him of an angel and decided to call her Pari.
From a delicate bud, Shiv observed his cousin bloom into a colorful flower. He laughed as she tried to toddle behind her mother. He listened to her as she added words, then sentences and finally the incessant questions. She followed him everywhere in the house but as soon he stepped outside the main gate of the courtyard, she would look at her mother and back away.
Just like any ordinary day, Shiv dashed back home before sunset from his daily adventures in the orchards and river bank. But one day as he stepped through the gate, what greeted him was unlike anything his creative mind could have imagined. A commotion of adults gathered in the courtyard. The air was filled with a stench he could not place. His mother saw him frozen at the gate. She ran to him, sheltered him in the folds of her sari and walked him away from the courtyard into the house to join his cousins in a room. Pari ran up to him and looked up with her big, wet hazel eyes searching for answers. He had none and looked away. She sat down beside him and rested her head on his shoulder.
The day of commotion was never discussed in the house. Shiv picked up words like “spark”, “cooking” or remarks like “sari clung to the skin”, “what a tragedy” from neighborhood chatter. He stared at Pari unsure what to say to her. She walked around the house in search of her mother, tears constantly rolling down her cheeks.
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