them one of the coins. A bonus, he said, for good work.
That coin, in the endless time which followed, was his daughters' secret treasure. They never spent it. Sometimes, late at night, in the crib they shared, the girls would bring the coin from its hiding place and admire it, holding hands.
It was their lucky coin, they decided. So long as they had it, they would be together. The family of Dadaji Holkar would still survive.


An Empress and Her Decision
As she watched Dadaji's tears soak her royal skin, the Empress Shakuntala made her own decision. And reaffirmed a vow.
She had never thought much about purity and pollution, in her short life. She had resented the caste system, half-consciously, for the many ways it constrained her. Had even hated it, half-consciously, for the inseparable barrier which it placed between her and her most precious desire. But she had never really thought about it, before. It had simply been there. A fact of life, like the three seasons