Chapter 8

The chapter starts with Anand, Nisha and Abhaydatta getting off at a town called Koila Ganj and after looking at many different hotels pick the oldest one that's almost completely run down because Abahydatta says that all of the others have a bad smell inside. Nisha exclaims that the whole town has a bad smell but Anand realizes that Abhaydatta is not talking about a regular smell. They eat dinner in the old hotel and later Abhaydatta draws a map on the floor and suddenly to Anand and Nisha's surprise it starts glowing. Abhaydatta tells them to try and memorize the map so that if they ever get separated they will know where to go. After they are done studying the map disappears. Abhaydatta says that they should be getting to bed as they have to start early in the morning. He lets Nisha take the lantern to go wash up and while she does he surprises Anand by saying that he should carry the conch form now on. Anand asks why and Abhaydatta replies that Surabhanu will probably go after Abhaydatta when he attacks and probably wont expect Abhaydatta to give something so precious to someone not sworn into the brotherhood. Abhaydatta finishes by saying that he must not tell anyone that he has the conch. Anand questions why but Abhaydatta stops talking when Nisha starts walking back to the room. He then falls asleep and has a dream in which he is about to attack Abhaydatta on the pretense that he is holding him back from a great life. In his dream he accidentally stubs his toe against a bed post and feels a jolt of pain in his leg. "dreams aren't supposed to hurt this much!" he thinks. Then he realizes that its not a dream and that he was about to smother the old man to death in real life. He tries to stop but an invisible force keeps pushing him forward. Suddenly he thinks of the conch and with a great mental struggle he manages to free himself but only after clawing his pillow to pieces.

As i was reading this chapter i thought about how the story would be like if there was no Surabhanu or if Abhaydatta didn't have magical powers. I would hate the story without Surabhanu because then there is no action at all. But no magic might put an interesting twist in the story because then its just a big game of cat and mouse where the conch is the prize though not having magical powers would make the conch useless.