“What are imerti?”
Moti’s big eyes grew even bigger. “You’ve never had imerti?” She turned to Jhalkari, who was walking next to her. Neither of them seemed to notice how wet the legs of their pants had become. “You ate imerti in your village, didn’t you?”
Any time someone was uneducated about something, they obviously turned to Jhalkari for help. Because if Jhalkari had done it—an ignorant Dalit girl from an ignorant village—well then, everyone must have.
“Outside of Jhansi, women are in purdah.” Jhalkari’s voice sounded thin. “There aren’t many occasions to eat imerti when your world is confined to the walls of your house.”
Moti slowed her pace to match mine. “So you never went outside?” she asked me.
“A few times. But only in a palanquin.”
“Then this must be absolutely overwhelming.”
“Which part?” Jhalkari answered for me. “The torrential rain or the beautiful sites?” As Jhalkari said this, we crossed in front of the elephants’ stables. The mahouts were sweeping out the stalls and piling dung into giant heaps, which they would probably burn once the rain was finished. I tried not to laugh, but Jhalkari met my gaze, and I couldn’t help it.
“Sita understood what I meant,” Moti said. “Didn’t you?”
“Yes. I had a very small life, but I was able to make it much bigger with books.”
If you have ever met someone who rarely reads, then you will understand the blank look Moti gave me. For nonreaders, life is simply what they touch and see, not what they feel when they open the pages of a play and are transported to the Forest of Arden or Illyria. Where the world is full of a thousand colors for those who love books, I suspect it is simply black and gray to everyone else. A tree is a tree to them; it is never a magical doorway to another world populated with beings that don’t exist here.
We crossed an avenue filled with shops selling coffee and tea, and a pair of English women passed by us. Their umbrellas were prettier than any I’d ever seen, and their skin was as thin and pale as moonlight.
“Foreigners,” Moti said when she saw the direction of my gaze.
I wanted to stare after them, but suddenly—several steps from a stall selling holy necklaces made from mango beads—we were at the Temple of Mahalakshmi. It stood on the shore of a Mahalakshmi Lake, surrounded by peepal trees that provided a nearly perfect cover from the rain. The servants lowered their umbrellas, and we left our wet juti on the marble steps.
“Mahalakshmi is the royal family’s deity,” Jhalkari said as we entered. “No other goddess is as revered by the rani. Not even Durga.”
Inside, the temple walls glowed like burning embers. They were made from amber and teak, and every time an oil lamp was lit the entire room gleamed. I tried not to stare at the other patrons, but most of them were so poor they couldn’t afford proper kurtas or dhoti. And their smell in the hot, sticky rain was overwhelming.
We spent nearly an hour standing behind a long wooden table, helping to oversee the distribution of food. I was astonished to see how familiar the rani was with the people of Jhansi: you would have thought she had known them all of her life, although she had become their queen only nine years before. They bowed to her and made respectful gestures of namaste, but they also looked into her eyes and made jokes. One of them had the audacity to say that in another few months, the rani would be as round as the imerti she was serving. I held my breath when the old man said this. Who knew what happened to people who dared to be overly familiar with a queen—prison? Execution? A fine?
But the rani tossed back her head and laughed. She thought it was funny.
“You shouldn’t encourage them,” Kahini said after the man had passed.
“Why not?” the rani said. “It’s true.” At this, she looked down at her stomach and patted it fondly. “I’ve waited nine long years for this. Looking like an imerti will be a blessing.”
I turned for an explanation to Sundari, who was standing next to me with a giant ladle and helping to serve daal, but her expression didn’t change.
“Is Gangadhar-ji also so intimate with his subjects?” I asked.
Sundari glanced at the rani, then lowered her serving ladle. “Who told you to use the raja’s name?”
“No one.” My heart beat baster. “I heard Kahini—”
“She is the raja’s cousin. What she is allowed to call him is her business. For everyone else, he is His Highness. The raja.”
I looked over at the rani, but she was talking to someone new and hadn’t heard me. “Of course.” I was so humiliated that I forgot what it was I had been asking. “I’m sorry.”
“Be careful. The rani does not abide anyone who is overconfident.”