Father reaches home, but he cannot find Rati anywhere. Then Rama says to Uncle,
"Could it be that Rati has gone back to that jungle again?"
Uncle, thinking for a moment, replies, "Hmmm… it's possible. Brother, I feel Rati has gone back into that same jungle. We should go there and check."
Everyone immediately heads toward the jungle, and within a short while, a light rain begins to fall. Meanwhile, Rati keeps walking deeper into the jungle without stopping. She doesn't even realize that the baby in her arms hasn't cried even once till now.
When everyone reaches the jungle, the villagers there stop them and ask, "Where are you all going? Don't you know that no one is allowed to go there?"
Father tries to explain, "Look, our daughter has gone inside the jungle. We are just going to find her."
Just then, the village chief says, "First, your daughter broke the jungle's rule by taking that baby from here, and now she has broken another rule by going into the forbidden part of the jungle. None of you can go inside. Otherwise, the evil spirits of the jungle will enter our area, and it will become impossible to control them. You should go back home. If the spirits wish, they will return your daughter to you… but I don't think your daughter will ever come back now."
Hearing this, Father loses his temper and punches the chief hard, shouting, "Are you humans or animals?! I am worried about my daughter, and this is what you're saying to me?!"
Father and the rest of the family try to enter the jungle, but the villagers stop them. They even tie up Father and Uncle with ropes.
Grandmother tries to make them understand, but no one is ready to listen.
Seeing all this, Mother realizes that begging these foolish people won't help. So she decides to use her mind like Rati. Quietly, she slips away, returns home, packs some necessary items in a bundle, and leaves again—taking the narrow field path that Rati used to take into the jungle.
On normal days, Mother would never have dared to take that path, but now, she doesn't know where this courage has come from. She just wants to find Rati at any cost.
Rama quietly follows her.
By evening, Father and Uncle are still tied up, and the villagers are not ready to release them. Grandmother is also being held back there.
Mother, holding a torch, finally reaches the deeper part of the jungle where even sunlight barely reaches. Rama, holding onto the edge of her mother's saree, walks closely behind her.
Meanwhile, after walking for so long, Rati's feet start hurting. She sits down on a bent tree branch to rest. To protect the baby from the rain, she places her inside her bag and starts eating her tiffin.
But even now, the baby hasn't cried even once. She lies quietly inside the bag, peacefully asleep.
Time passes, and now it is late at night. After walking so much, Mother and Rama also become very tired.
Rama starts feeling hungry, so Mother takes out some makuni roti from her bundle and gives it to her to eat.
Meanwhile, in the jungle, the village chief announces that he will call a meeting the next day to decide what should be done with Father and Uncle. Grandmother is also there with them.
After eating her tiffin, Rati falls asleep at the same spot.
By midnight, the rain has completely stopped. Until then, Mother and Rama had been sitting under a sack to protect themselves from the rain, but as night falls, they begin to feel very cold.
Rati is also shivering from the cold, but at the same time, she feels happy seeing her new sister beside her.
Slowly, she starts developing a fever, but even in her dreams, she is happily playing and laughing with her new sister and Rama.
Morning arrives, and Rati wakes up to the sound of birds chirping.
Mother and Rama also wake up. After getting up, Mother tells Rama to go back home. Rama refuses at first, but after a lot of convincing, she is finally forced to leave.
Rati's whole body is trembling because of the fever, but even then, she once again picks up the baby in her arms and starts walking.
But now, the baby's entire body has become stiff—it feels as if she is a wooden doll, completely rigid. Rati doesn't understand what this means. Lost in her own determination, she keeps walking nonstop, burning with fever, without realizing anything.