Summary

The next day, Anita tells Ram that Rajiv Gandhi, the former prime minister and leader of the Congress Party, has been assassinated. Ram, shocked, notes, “for the first time in nearly a hundred years, a Nehru was not at the center of power” (118). Anita indirectly confronts Ram about his behavior with Asha; she says she “would kill Asha” (118) if anything happened.

Ram leaves for the temple in order to find the pundit for Radha’s death anniversary. Because of Gandhi’s assassination and the potential for riots, the streets are quiet and tense. Ram comes upon a group of angry young men. The men watch a Sikh family as they prepare to flee Delhi. Ram intervenes and secures a rickshaw for the family. This good deed “confirmed [Ram’s] sense that the world was changed” (123). At the temple, the pundit agrees to attend...