The Holy Woman

knowing for sure that a tide of colour had suffused her cheeks. ‘I have never eaten out alone with a bachelor before.’
‘Am I still like a single man, Zarri Bano? Surely not!’ She heard both the indignation and the hurt behind the words.
‘You are, Sikander, that is until I step into your home as your wife.’ Her eyes on a seventeenth century Mughal painting of a Maharani taking a walk in her garden, Zarri Bano felt the urge to clarify the situation to him. ‘At the moment, there is nothing between us.’
‘I dispute that, Zarri Bano.’ He leaned forward on the tablecloth, his soft gaze warming her face. ‘There is everything between us, and you know it! It was love at first

She enlisted Pakinaz’s help for interpretation of words and making sense of Arabic colloquial phrases and idioms.

I miss you too, Ruby, I still cannot come to terms with where I am and what I am doing here, and why I am doing it.’

he was nevertheless surprised by an inexplicable urge to see what the woman with green eyes looked like in

‘It’s all right,’ Zarri Bano reassured her, noting the girl’s unease. ‘We wear it at home all the time.’ From the corner of her eye, she was still conscious of the young man’s presence. She knew he was surveying her from behind his glasses at the other end of the room. With him hovering nearby, they had no intention of removing their burqas!

She had bartered her love for family tradition.

He said that he would invite her to his wedding and she would remember him till the day she died

Sikander mocked bitterly. ‘Well, you have just betrayed yourself. We will always be lovers!’

Zarri Bano’s fingers had taken on a life and will of their own. They began to move against his lips, touching and caressing the area around his mouth and jawline. With his eyes still on hers, watching, he moved his face to accommodate her fingers’ sensuous, tentative journey, until they lay against his lips once more, responding to the pressure of his mouth.
Horrified, her eyes fluttered open. Her cheeks on fire, she jerked her burning hand away from his lips. ‘What have you done to me?’ she accused in a hiss, stepping away from him and glancing down in bewilderment at her fingers – ashamed.

I am still a microcosm of my clan, a daughter of a wealthy and a very powerful zemindar. Our family, behaviour, social etiquette is dictated by a code of ethics and customs peculiar to my clan – that you, as an outsider from another social group, cannot begin to understand. I am a part of that whole, and that is where I belong. I cannot cut myself off for you from that whole, it is not that simple!’