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Magi, “Promise not to tell Father, Behn, promise?"
No sooner did they step foot inside the door than Magi, honest soul, blurted out the full truth, “O Daddy, want to know where Bhai took me just now? We went out and ate and ate, sweets and idli dhosa and everything!" "Where did you get the money, Rup?" his father asked him. “And why go out to eat when we have everything right here?” His father's patience was wearing thin, and Rup re-ceived a quick spanking. “If you had at least told me the truth before Magi told me, I would have appreciated your honesty." Rup glared at Magi, pouting and angry. “You'd better not tell on me again,” he told her later.
Little incidents of joy and tears brought brother and sister together until the year 1933, when Rup turned eleven and Magi eight. Widowed Aunt Gajara, his father's younger sister who had been living with the motherless children and taking care of the family, decided to visit relatives in Takhatgadh. Rather than leave Magi behind with her father and brother, Aunt Gajara took her along on the trip.
It was the last time Rup would see his little sister. An epidemic of smallpox struck the small village that she was visiting with her aunt. Magi fell helpless before the fatal attack, along with many other young girls and boys. When the news came, both Rup and his father felt pain carve deep into their hearts. Rup had met the trauma of his mother's departure with the help of the kind old neighbor, his father, and his aunt, as well as with his own hopeful spirit and the soothing balm of time. Though he used to pretend to be a brave and adventur-ous child, often mischievous too, he was unprepared for this shock. He felt a cavernous void open inside him. All of Magi's shortcomings were completely forgiven and forgotten before the gravity of this event. For a time life appeared senseless to him.
When he was four, he had not been able to empathize consciously with his father whose sorrow had been deep. He had not noticed how for many days he had fasted and closed himself in prayer, until he could take hold of himself again. But
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