Sonali was behaving, by Sandhya's private estimate, as though it were somehow Diwali three months early.

She had commandeered Sandhya's bedroom since early afternoon, laying out sarees across the bed with the particular ceremonial seriousness of a woman conducting an important ritual rather than simply helping her daughter get dressed, holding one after another up against her shoulders, tilting her head, discarding two before finally settling on a deep wine-coloured saree with a modestly cut back and delicate gold embroidery along the border.