When Devi asked about Uma's short married life, the grandmother told Amba's story. As if the myths were reenacted before her eyes, Devi draws a parallel between the story of Amba in the Mahabharata and Uma, an ordinary girl and Devi's cousin. Uma marries into a wealthy family. She was a motherless girl and led her life like an orphan despite having a father because her father was “hostile” to her (Hariharan, TFN 35). For an orphan like her it was a sign of great luck, “…to have found a partner in a wealthy family…” (Hariharan, TFN 35). Everyone therefore considered her lucky and she got married with great celebrations. Every corner of their house was clean and decorated. One day, Devi peeked furtively into newlywed Uma's room when her husband "grabbed her hand and a look passed between them, a kind of signal..." (Hariharan, TFN 35). This closely reflects the harmony and rhythm between the two. But this external harmony and rhythm was actually her husband's carnal passion and as soon as he was satisfied, he started misbehaving with Uma. In reality her husband and her father were drunkards and every day both of them, "...drank until she was stupefied with fear..." (Hariharan, TFN 35). She was trying to adjust to all of this even though she wasn't prepared for it. But everything has its limits. In Uma's case, the barriers of her tolerance and her relationship with her husband were broken when one day, exceeding all their respective limits, her father-in-law, "...kissed her brutally on the lips" (Hariharan, TFN 35) and her husband did not he had reacted and even acted as if nothing objectionable had happened. After this incident Uma left her husband and never returned to him and it seems quite obvious on the part of a