Shakuntala Follows her Foster Mother Gautami for the Evenings Prayers at the Hermitage

After their conversation, Gautami and Shakuntala leave Shakuntala’s little cottage and proceed to attend the evening prayers of the hermitage. Still mulling over Shakuntala’s admission of her affair with Dushyant, Gautami betrays her apprehension, her brows worried, her gaze steady and grave. She is depicted with a pensive gesture placing a finger near her mouth, while Shakuntala, unaware of Gautami’s unease, dutifully follows a step behind.

A wash of pale blue streaked with a dash of white crowns a vast expanse of mountains, its peaks rising high against the sky. Brown hillocks wash into a speckling of verdant grass, bushes and a forest of neatly arranged young pines, largely rendered in pairs. A myriad vocabulary of trees, of different shapes and sizes, some real, some imaginary, profusely covered shrub and grasses form an enrapturing landscape that provides a delightful counterpoint to the little abode that Shakuntala resides in.

Realistically rendered trees with stocky, knotty trunks and forked, twisting branches, are framed by large leaves of fantastic colors of dull orange, pale green and lilac, delineated in equally imaginative shapes.

Although realistically depicted, the trees still maintain a distinctly ornamental feel. Birds embellish the lush trees in colourful little spots, perched on the branches of the trees, their long sweeping tails hanging, or swoop and fly about the idyllic landscape, or peck at a scattering of grain.

Below, a muddy brown rivulet winds its way through, charting a course through the slopes and rocks, its faint parallel lines, mildly curving accentuate its waves. Delicate sprays of grasses and shrubs erupt on either side of its banks, and bulky rocks in browns and white lay dispersed.
Shakuntala’s little hut is half hidden by the teeming canopy of trees. Outside, on the small clearing around the hut, under shade of the trees lies unfolded a mat woven with dried grass rendered in patient detail, where Gautami and Shakuntala conducted their tête-à-tête.