I began to hate him. I constantly wondered and prayed, "Allah, why has this curse attached itself tome? O God, free me from it." But there he was, without fail, every day. I was making fewer mistakes now,but sometimes I would still mispronounce a few words. If I made a mistake, he would wail, "Hai," asif he had been stung by a snake, "my heart is broken." I would say to myself, "May God reallyrupture your heart." I used to be so furious that every day I would pray that he would fall ill, break aleg or be bitten by a rabid dog, and not appear at our house again! In the morning there were three hours oflearning from Mamman Khan, then another hour or two of singing lessons. In the evening it was ghazals andnaats. Instead of praise, he only found fault, "Do not deliver it like that, do not pronounce it likethis." For fear of my mother I could do nothing but curse him silently even though I hated him so muchthat I could not look at him for more than five minutes at a time. Often I prayed at the shrine of Hare BhareShah and Hazrat Nizamuddin to be rid of him, but he would turn up hale and hearty and on the dot, every day