- Things go from bad to worse once Chandra leaves. Mr. Mehta is depressed because his son is dead, his daughter is gone and he's disrespected at work. Yeah, that's a heavy load to shoulder.
- They get electricity at the school and start installing computers. It's great for Mr. Mehta's students, but he doesn't know anything about this sort of thing and becomes useless. No one respects him.
- Most nights he comes home from work and sits in his room, depressed and chanting prayers.
- Mrs. Mehta continues to find fault with everything Koly does, even when she does it right.
- Koly decides she won't be mischievous any more, and works really hard. Somehow, though, this only annoys Mrs. Mehta more.
- Food is getting scarce, and some days Koly is so hungry she's dizzy.
- One day she sees a stray dog and decides to make him her pet. She bathes him and gives him table scraps when she can.
- Of course Mrs. Mehta is livid when she finds out. When the dog chases down a goose, she beats him, but he runs away with it still in his mouth and never returns again.
- Next up, Koly tries her hand at taming a bandicoot. Before long, though, he senses the depression in the house and gets the heck out of Dodge.
- On her way to town one day, Koly has an idea about her pension and asks the guy that Mrs. Mehta took her to see if she can pick up the money herself.
- He tells her that's not how it's done—but if she moves somewhere, she can have the money sent to her new address.
- This gives Koly another idea: She'll use her pension and the earrings to live for a little while until she finds a job. It's risky, since at least with the Mehtas she has a roof over her head and some rice.
- Still, though, Koly is determined to go.
- Then one day Mr. Mehta comes home early from school. (We're not told this, but we can guess that he was fired).
- He goes into his room, rolls up his mat, and dies.