My neighbour’s gramophone is still playing, now it’s Kishori Amonkar’s Kaanada vitthala—I sit until the gramophone stops and come in. It’s past 1 am. I can’t stop thinking of Vaasanna and Gowri. My dreams are flooded with Gowri, whom I’ve never seen in my life- she’s sitting on the moonlit terrace of Navilgere house, I’m six years old again, I’m wearing my favourite candy-orange frock. I’m sitting before Gowri, mesmerised. Gowri becomes the ocean, and I, an orange fish; she becomes the sky, and I, the crimson sun. A new dawn breaks and my dream merges with my neighbour’s riyaaz. I wake up with a sense of relief that at the end of every day there will be a night to lead me inwards