Across The Purple Moor

Book excerpt: ‘Purple Moor!’ The art teacher’s livid voice resonates. Rushali watches her mother cringe, called into the principal's office again; but thankfully, her father, Dev Pillay chooses to see her painting as eclectic and a reflection of the caring person she is. When Rushali is just seventeen, her father, the one person who understood her, suddenly passes away. Now Rushali must find her path from the chaos of nonconformity she built for herself. A semblance of calm pervades in her relationship with her mother until Mohan arrives on the scene. At forty-seven, the shackles are unbearable, judged repeatedly in parameters that do not fit her persona. Then, so unexpectedly, Rushali is free! But is this the freedom she sought? What tryst of fate made her paint the moor purple? Do such moors exist?