At the Shalimar Gardens

At the Shalimar gardens, the sun blazed down and her parents glowered at each other. She was familiar with these unkind silences; above all, her mother's eyes looking with resentment at her father. A look that says that "Though I am here, in this fine garden of cool white marble and lush vegetation, my adventure is tarnished because I chose you". 

Maya wondered, yet again, why her mother could not appreciate the man: hard working, diligent and loving. As a teenager, she could surely sense that her mother was altogether sharper than her father.In many ways, he could not keep up his wife's drive and intelligence. What could Maya do but observe and try and provide some solace for him as he laboured away.

This time, though, she saw her father's gaze drift. She followed it and it took her to a willowy lady, in a simple blue sari, who seemed to be charged with some repairs to the red and green floral designs on some of the little doorways on the garden's periphery. Maya felt, with a peculiar shiver, that the lady was truly lovely. That there was something lithe and at ease in the body and in the limpid dark eyes that turned to meet hers with a smile. May could not help but make the comparison with the stiffness of her mother - so beautiful, herself, but so affected by minor slights and what she saw as the disappointments of life.

There was joy in the brushstroke and in the movement of wrist and hand; in the way that the girl was absorbed in the task - and in the way she adjusted her sari to allow better movement when she needed to reach up. Maya knew that her father saw all this, too.

Well, her father was a man of principle. With reponsibilities and family, he would not leave for a girl with kind eyes who thought him charming. Instead, he might be ground down a little further by the woman he married and so, just now,  Maya was glad that her father's mind could drift, while he watched a girl with coltish limbs and deft fingers and as he saw her disappear behind the fretwork at the Shalimar gardens as she made her way home.

The Shalimar Gardens are in Lahore, Pakistan. They are ornate formal gardens, built by Jehangir, Mughal successor to Shah Jehan, who built the Taj Mahal.