Our mourning is not prolonged. Our grief is tinged with the urgency for the search for Dina. It has to be swift, before she is really taken. I mean—taken captive, pending, being trapped by marriage.

Moments ago, Dayeema had let out a shriek which alerted us. She was crestfallen, having let the tail of the ugly black cloud slip from her fingers. The ugly black cloud that had abducted Dina had climbed in bursts of three—mimicking a child, somewhat imbalanced, hurriedly climbing upstairs while skipping one-legged, as though abundantly cheerful and equally naughty—she recounted. It had wiggled through the power cables high above, disengaged its body and escaped into higher atmospheric territory, then out of our vision.

Gathering around, we don’t speak. Dayeema doesn’t say anything more. Dina is gone forever.

Your sisters and you just wait for Dayeema’s orders. You’ll not let any more of your sisters be stolen like this.

Her nod could be the thunderbolt. You are shoving the photograph into everyone’s face, when the woman-with-the-thunderbolt-nod nods. In your culture, the nod has many variations, and equally, those many meanings. This head is tilted in alternating up and down arcs along the sagittal plane, like a child’s spinning top, whirring, deciding which way to fall.

The next one is not a tilt of head that signals irritation. Instead she measures you, feet to hair, and decides. What? That’s not clear, because the nod meant a no, she tells you, by way of explicit confirmation, when you look confused. She has never seen this girl of twelve in the photograph, now seventeen, in a parrot-printed summer frock, ears reddened from the piercing she’d just had, a mischievous smile because she’d been stealing mangoes from the neighbour’s orchard.

Every nod is an omen setting you deeper and deeper into domains of unknowing. The cloud clan is stronger than ever. Sisters of thunder-men are everywhere. They are the lightning-women; they can take forms that suit their fancy. They’re the shapes of rustic women, shapes of aromatic nameless wildflowers, and shapes of buoyant neem trees that nod to winds for eons. This thought makes you suspect these women who nod. Do they know something about Dina, and are yet, conniving?

‘Kyon?’ the milkmaid steps out of her home at your call, shoves you aside and tosses vegetable peels out on the street to make use of her time stepping out. As you balk, she queries again, ‘Why you ask?’

‘She’s a sister. Stolen by the thunder-men.’

‘Ah-ha!’ She laughs.

‘Then, why look for her on the ground, amidst our fields and homes? Ha?’

‘Thunder-men are crafty. I only explain because you act like you know nothing. Well, if you didn’t know yet, I suspect she’s been deposited with their many sisters, the lightning-women, for safe-keeping, until they have the podium ready, the horoscopes matched, and an auspicious night with storms and fireworks ready for the wedding.’

‘Is it?’ She laughs one more time. A strange laugh of disbelief, mocking the story of a child-woman like myself, perhaps too unhinged to be true in her estimate.

This is not a time to cry, not with face abegging, eyes to heavens. The cloud clan has forcibly married Dayeema’s daughters for centuries now. If you saw an interface, it might be one of Dayeema’s daughters peering from there, someone who could be your mother, except she was never released, and you—the baby of a cloud and a woman, liberated instead to grow into a woman who they might fancy when the time is ripe. They let you go. They let you fall miles to soil, ensconced in one of many raindrops that regularly descend on earth, to be reunited with Dayeema, and nurtured through adolescence.

You often hear the rumblings of your thunder father, imagine your mother crying when it rains, and bereft of love above and below, watch the shelves of cottony clouds play on a blue field when autumn arrives. You think of the place you were born in, in the upturned vessel of the sky.

Main hoon hi nahi is duniya ki: As a child you often roared emphatically, little knowing it was actually a curse.

You remember what mother told you once. Cotton flowers are trapped clouds. Only cotton farmers can expertly hook thunder-clouds, cleave them into tiny bits and stuff the pods in their fields with those bits. Packed like that for long periods, the thunder-men are drained of all their powers to regroup again. So cotton farmers are the only ones that can end the tyranny of the cloud clan.

You had listened in awe.

Today, you shout again:

Main hoon hi nahi is duniya ki.

Main hoon hi nahi is duniya ki.

Your cries float away to the distant hills and back.

You shy away when you spot gaping onlookers, peasants and labourers from the nearby fields, baffled at your dishevelled clothes but royal manner of speaking, as though someone possessed or of unsound mind. You run off to where your mother once hid to escape being taken away by the thunder-kingdoms Vikings. It’s a ruined mansion that was once struck and destroyed by lightning. Mother said she had spent days together, hidden there, among the braided mountain-ivy. The mansion smells of moss, the bricks showing up like a monster’s jutting teeth, the pillars like they’ll give away any minute, and rather be a concrete pile washed away by the rains. You walk through the undergrowth that has taken over the mansion to discover the twines around. They are handy to make a swing, tied to one of the hooks in the walls. You think it could be made into a rope ladder for you to meet your mother and older sisters held captive up there.

This is not your village, or you could have asked for help with the search. Only you and your sisters must do it alone, without aid.

Dina could be dead. As you roam around, the thought swirls more often, now that several hours have passed.

You think of Dina with increasing dread. She is your twin; she is more than a sister. She is the one you saw in bed next to you every morning as you woke up. The only time you didn’t see Dina, was when she’d escaped five months ago, revealing her plans to you beforehand. She said she was tired of the way Dayeema kept all the girls hidden—in mango boughs, sometimes in mud huts meant for the cattle, sometimes in a trunk meant to keep heirloom saris.

Dayeema warned you not to venture out, even for water, because she feared the thunder-men would spy on you. She believed you were safe from their hunting, safe from the abductions, if you stayed hidden.

You had feigned sleep that morning, until Dayeema noticed that Dina was missing. You wished that Dina escaped the curse that has haunted women of Dayeema’s clan for ages. For yourself, unlike Dina, you hoped you’d be taken away by a prince instead. That morning too, you and your sisters had embarked on a search like this one.

An unenthusiastic head bobble can be a polite way of declining something without saying no. But you noticed they were more like a pattern. It seemed the nods were a contorted way to mock your plight.

Following Dina’s disappearance five months ago, you had all gathered at Dayeema’s private chambers. There, while everyone was praying, the brass idol of Kumari Devi had briefly nodded in a direction that indicated where Dina might be. She was brought back because Dina couldn’t be allowed to do what normal girls her age normally do. Dina couldn’t be permitted to live like a commoner. She could not be allowed to elope and marry a simple, hardworking cotton farmer who lived with his parents in the far corner of the village.

That young man was no prince. Unlike you, Dina had never desired one. One morning almost a year ago, a boyish-faced man was on his way to the market, when he had discovered you sisters hiding among the haystacks where Dayeema had ordered you to be. He had openly been enamoured with Dina—and did not shy away from revealing his feelings. In turn, Dina was immediately brought to liveliness by that young man. After that chance encounter, Dina met him secretly, to which end she enlisted your help. Once they were together, even though you remained away to allow them private comfort, you could hear Dina giggle and laugh, as though she was her happiest self ever. How badly she wanted to escape her doomed future!

When you were alone, just the two of you, Dina told you she was waiting for the right time.

Waiting for far too long, Dina had decided to twist open the knob of her captivity that morning five months ago, and waking you up and telling you, she had the courage to escape out and be where her moods took her. Alas, by evening, owing to the intervention of the brass idol of Kumari Devi, it turned out to be a misstep, one that ended in futility.

The sun can be seen crawling to its perch. It must be nearly noon. This second time you’re searching for Dina, it is turning out to be much worse. Dina hasn’t shared her intentions with you. Besides, Dayeema vouches that she witnessed the abduction—of Dina being carried away by that ugly cloud. However much she tried, she lamented many times, she could only grab its tail, and had to let that slip through her fingers too, because clouds are unimaginably powerful.

Even though you feel, deep down, that Dayeema has erred, and that Dina is safe, you dare not mistrust the old, fragile woman who brought you up.

You wipe your tears as you walk the mud-lanes that crisscross the village, thought-dried and aimless. Your hope eroding fast.

You’re at the outer periphery of the village where the lane meets the concrete road. You watch a small caravan leave the village. The bullock-cart is laden with humongous bales of cotton. The young man who commands it wears a turban so huge it partially conceals his face. The family, that trails the bullock-cart on foot, carry possessions bundled under their arms or on their heads.

You wonder if you really saw the turbaned-man nod, or if it was something your mind conjured up.

At noon, you are on the fire dragon’s back, because it’ll give you a free ride. Besides, fire dragons and the branch-sons of cloud men, are arch-enemies. You know this fire-dragon has an eye on you. If you manage to escape the thunder-men, this fire dragon will surely take you away. You accepted its offer of help because now is not a time to think of personal dislikes.

Riding against the train tracks, you keep peeping into the shanties by the tracks to look for Dina. Perhaps the sisters of thunder-men are keeping Dina there, hiding her under the enormous tarpaulins.

But there is no success.

Tired and parched, you lick your own sweat streaming down your face.

By late afternoon, you reject the fire dragon’s plea to continue assisting. Your sisters and you now regroup and climb onto specks of dust to travel through the air on the shoulders of a tropical storm and go barge into the hotel that’s near the railway station.

You and your sisters sift through each room, there’s not a trace or hint of someone held wrongly.

The storm is still picking up speed when you cross the pavement, and run across to the railway station premises. Pilgrims to Kumbh, caught in the storm, and freshly invested in briny grains upon their skin, hurry for cover.

A woman with hip-length wavy hair, pushes a stack of cardboard boxes on a cart towards the stall by the roadside, causing a commotion.

‘Dina!’

Hearing you, one of your sisters runs and grabs a woman pilgrim by the arm. She turns to look, but it’s not Dina.

You look at the faces of the people standing around stunned by the suddenness. Most are pilgrims. They stop and empathise, gauging the immediacy of the situation of a near-relation gone missing. Some, overwhelmed with concern, offer to help, but you politely refuse.

Your sisters and you resume the search for Dina. Minutes tick away.

‘We lost her. The lightning-sisters may have boarded a train with Dina.’ The sister, with the long bony arms, says.

‘We can’t give up now!’ The chant from the rest is spontaneous.

Dusk, raw like wound, settles in where the storm has just passed through. You, daughters of Dayeema and daughters-of-daughters, similitude of drops, tokens of your thunder fathers, are still around, looking for Dina.

Everyone whom you ask, they only nod. And the ‘no’ sticks to you—the no-in-the-N-O-D sticks to you even more, the more unlikely you’ll ever find Dina.

You pause; something holds your attention. The bullock-cart you saw earlier, still laden with cotton bales, has been abandoned under the prayer flags hanging from a pole near the railway station. The bullocks are nowhere to be seen, nor the women, nor the young man in a turban. As you try to see more clearly in the descending semi-darkness, try to see deep inside, conflicting thoughts arise in your mind. Cotton? Farmer?

A couple walk by, very close to you. The man is oddly familiar but has his face painted with colours as is common for pilgrims, making him unrecognizable. The woman has a veil drawn over her face. She playfully brushes your shoulder. As you turn, surprised and mildly irritated, she lifts her veil ever so slightly, then nods very slowly as she crosses.

You don’t grab her for affirmation. You know dead-sure who this woman is, and what her nod means.

The couple are headed to catch the train leaving for Kumbh soon. You shield the sight of their passage onto the platform from your sisters, who are still swarming the steadily-thinning mass of pilgrims, checking every face.

Locking the truth of Dina’s daring escape deep in your heart, you discharge a long sigh of relief.

When you return to Dayeema and report an unsuccessful search, you must make sure to steal the brass idol in Dayeema’s chambers before it has occasion to sway its head one way or other to indicate Dina’s bearings. You must bury it deep in the backyard.