Once upon a time, there lived gods. They lived merrily until the world was overrun by rakshasas, malicious demons, bent on wreaking havoc. The gods battled and vanquished the rakshasas, and everything was fine for a while.

The gods and demons went their respective ways, after acknowledging each other’s prowesses. In the age of telegrams and Reuters it made scant sense for them to be battling each other in public with all the associated pyrotechnics. So the gods ascended to Vaikunta – Heaven – and the rakshasas to one of the seven layers of Naraka – Hell. The gods reigned in their stratospheric paradise, inaccessible to most, except to a few priests from inside the sanctum sanctorum of a handful of temples. To keep the priests from repeatedly bothering them, the gods only responded after the right propitiating rituals had been performed at a certain time of the day, and on certain days of the year. Bureaucracy, it appeared, was innate even to the luminous gods. Not much was known about the rakshasas’ post-retirement antics.

Many a grandparent told this to their grandchildren when they were asked where the gods and rakshasas now were. This was, of course, the best explanation they could give, for the truth was far from that.

It would have been heretical to suggest that there was no Vaikunta or Naraka. So no one did. But there really were no such places. The gods and the demons had to share space with humans on the same planet. The rakshasas’ powers had been significantly weakened at the end of the last great battle, and many of them skulked and made homes at the bottom of volcanoes, in the densest jungles, and in the deepest depths of the oceans. With their powers of camouflage and teleportation significantly weakened they dared not show themselves in public, for an errant god, still itching for a rematch might off them once and for all.

As for the gods, they simply assumed disguises the way the Pandavas had during their yearlong exile incognito (and in fact, acted as paid consultants to expound on the details of melding amongst men) and slipped into the world of men. They donned suits, kurtas, kimonos, dialed down their superpowers, and went about living their lives in absolute anonymity, attending schools, working jobs, marrying, siring children, dying, allowing themselves to be cremated or buried before silently slipping into the ground, and reemerging elsewhere to begin this cycle again.

The monotony got tiring sometimes, and many gods itched to shed their human skin, reveal their true form, and bask in the blazing golden aura of their omnipotence. The few times that this happened, nearby people were singed on the spot or permanently lost their senses and had to be institutionalized. The offending god eventually got a letter in the mail warning them against such unnecessary displays of awesomeness with a threat to downgrade their powers if they repeated the charade. The Bureaucracy, when it worked, was an efficient machine capable of identifying and neutralizing miscreants in itself.

The gods knew that everything, like fashion and history, repeated itself, and that eventually the world would go back to the days when the rakshasas would become powerful enough to terrorize everyone, and their services would once more be needed. Until that time they were to remain mostly invisible to us.

There were some gods, however, who were unable, or unwilling, to shed their form, and preferred a quiet life of solitariness and anonymity. They cut ties with society, having built a support structure of servants and assistants by recruiting from the kumara class of demigods. They preferred to live at the cusp of nature and civilization in palatial houses that were eternally cool and dimly lit. They spent their time, pensively staring at the mountains or the seas, ignoring all personnel contact for days and months, brooding, reminiscing, and watching.

One lived in Pleasant Nagar.

September. Monsoon.

The endless rain hurled down from angry clouds like slabs of glass. At first the sudden coolness and the aromatic petrichor lulled everyone into a nostalgic anticipation of the rainy season where, for a few days, the sun hid behind the thick dark clouds and the air was filled with the impending gifts from them. Soon the monsoon clouds turned from a nourishing shower to an ominous force as it upended roads, overflowed gutters and brought all life to a shivering standstill. Schools were closed, and if they weren’t, the classrooms were almost empty. The temperatures dropped low enough for ceiling fans to be turned off. Mothers and children dug through mothballed suitcases stowed in the topmost cupboards of their bedrooms for woolen sweaters and monkey-caps. Men folded their arms tightly at bus stops and swore at the drivers every time murky water splashed on them.

Sundari’s father was returning home with a heavy heart, his mind fixed on a yellow rose. His case at the High Court had been deferred yet again to a later date as his lawyer had been unable to present it to the judge. He stood at the edge of the ferry, oblivious to the drenching rain, grasping the rusted metal bars as the boat bobbed up and down on the choppy waters like one of the many paper boats the children made and sailed down the overflowing streets. He had had his hopes high on getting the case resolved. For years, he had floated around the corridors of the high court like a disembodied spirit, praying and hoping that the deed to a small plot of land would be finally transferred onto his name so that he would have some assets by the time Sundari was of a marriageable age. She was already seventeen, and that age was approaching fast. As the thunderclouds grumbled and rolled towards the land, the lawyer had clasped his shoulder, and said, “Sorry, these things are not in my hands. Without influence our case will be backlogged, but we’ll try to get the judge to look at it within a few months.” Saying that he had collected his black cape and walked away, looking like an oversized bat slowly flying away to its roost.

Then it had started to drizzle, and he had hurried home, eager to make sure that if the electricity went out, his daughter would not be alone in the darkness. Now on the boat, he rued that he hadn’t been able to procure a yellow rose, a simple gift, thanks to this blasted rain.

The ferry docked at the island of Pleasant Nagar, and the scant passengers hopped off and scurried away under black umbrellas or useless wet newspapers, desperate to seek shelter somewhere, anywhere. Sundari’s father trudged homewards, knowing very well the immensity of the monsoon. Once it claimed Madras as its home, it wouldn’t leave for a while, sometimes pouring its woes onto the city nonstop for days at end. He walked briskly, his polished leather shoes soggy in the foot-high water, his neatly tailored and ironed clothes dripping, his hair bedraggled and his mood somber. He walked with his head down, unable to see the fury of the monsoon in the eye, his thoughts on Sundari.

Now he stood at a fork in the road and debated which one to take: the short route led home, but the waters on the street were almost waist high. He spotted a poor soul pushing his Vespa scooter through it as if it were a water-buffalo being led across a turgid river. The other route, via Arundale Street, was not only longer and dangerously close to the ocean, but also housed the rich people of the island, and he loathed walking by them, for his heart wrenched at the thought that he could not afford his daughter the luxury of a car, a driver, a larger house and other rich people things.

Ever since life had exchanged his wife for his daughter, he was determined to spare no expense to make sure that Sundari was always happy. He bought her the best clothes, sent her to the best private school, and periodically showered her with gifts. She had grown into a beautiful young woman. He was already receiving proposals for her marriage via his family, but he insisted that she earn a college degree first. The child was, however, precocious, and while she accepted his gifts, she always asked for nothing more than his company and simple things such as: the yellow rose that she had requested earlier that day.

Now he walked down Arundale Street, his head down, his shoes plopping as he stepped over potholes and hopped over gurgling manholes that appeared to be portals to Naraka. Rain beat around him in such thick sheets that it was like walking through solid fog. He checked his watch: it was almost six o’clock. Sundari would have started preparing dinner.

The clouds rumbled overhead and lightning fulminated with a crack. If it was even possible, it began to rain harder now. He ducked his head and hurried down Arundale Street. He forced his mind to focus on putting one leg in front of the other. ‘Soon,’ he told himself, ‘you’ll be home to a warm meal, your comfortable chair, and a tobacco pipe.’

As he walked, a flickering flame caught his eye. He paused briefly and turned, the very act sending down rivulets of water down his neck and back. He shivered as he stared at a palatial stone construction that yawned across and stood magnificently high. Statues of two lions stood on either side of the gate, and inside their maws, flickered oil lamps with such impossible steadiness that it arrested him.

Against his will, he walked towards the bungalow, and placed his hand on the metal grill gate. It swung open silently, revealing a well-manicured lawn. Many statues of dancers and cherubs stood amidst the bushes in such equipoise that it appeared as though they were real people who had been petrified. In spite of the torrential rain, a distinct and heady aroma of flowers wafted and captured him. As he walked in he noticed that the rain here wasn’t as torrid as it was outside, but more of a serene mist. He was taken back to memories of his honeymoon in the hill station of Ooty where he and his wife had explored the misty tea plantations along terraced slopes.

There was no one about. A bungalow of this stature always came with its human accoutrements: a gardener here tending to the flowerbeds, a driver there polishing the expensive cars, and a couple of maids squatting outside and chatting. Here there was nobody. He ascended the marble stairs, walked by the large wicker swing and stood in front of a magnificent wooden door with a black lion head knocker made out of wrought iron. He merely had to hold the ring when the door swung open quietly. The aroma of camphor and incense drifted from the dimly lit interiors, and he found himself drawn into house.

He stepped inside, wary of the puddles of water dribbling down his sides and accumulating around him. But when he turned back, he found the floor spotlessly clean, and no trace of moisture anywhere. A bronze statue of Nataraja stood in the center of the living room. It was so large that it commanded his awe. He walked around it, and observed the myriad of tiny fires at its edges flickering gently in the cool dark air. There were no modern amenities in the house: no television, no telephone, no radio, not even a sofa set. Instead, he felt like he had gone back in time and into another era, into the court of a king with a penchant for the finer things.

There were ritzy divans on the floor adorned with lush embroidered fabric and massive pillows. Arabesque glass hookahs stood like sentries next to them. Oil lamps flickered in every corner, casting a warm glow around works of art and steps on the floor, but otherwise leaving the cavernous halls relatively dark. Massive paintings made from iridescent paints hung on the walls, depicting various scenes from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Intricate kinetic sculptures rose from the walls or the ceiling, and they morphed or gyrated hypnotically, adding an air of sophistication to the place.

He walked with trepidation, unsure as to whose house he was trespassing. As much as a part of him warned him to turn back and head homewards to his waiting daughter, another side of him was too enamored by the meretricious bungalow and inexorably drew him deeper.

Presently, he came to an open courtyard where a single golden tulasi plant grew from an ornate granite structure. A golden sunbeam illuminated it from the patch of sky above bathing it in an ethereal glow. He was never a religious man – he visited the temple on occasion and changed his sacred thread once a year with all the required rigmarole – but at this sight, he brought his palms together, convinced that he wasn’t just in some rich man’s house, but someone even greater than that.

A young Brahmin boy appeared now from one of the many rooms. His head was shaved except for a little tail of hair from the back of his head. His eyes were the inkiest black he had ever seen and glistened with a ferocious intelligence that was too difficult to keep focus on. His forehead had the three vertical vibhuti stripes, indicating that he regarded Vishnu as his god. He wore the sacred thread across his naked torso and a white veshti around his loins. He caught his breath when he saw that the boy had no belly button.

“Whose house is this?” Sundari’s father asked, his voice trembling.

The boy remained mute, but he gestured to a room. The man walked to the room, and found a fresh set of clothes neatly laid out on a large four poster bed with a lion-clawed foot for each leg. He turned around, and found the door closed behind him. He quickly discarded his wet clothes, toweled his hair dry and changed into the dry shirt and veshti.

He exited the room and saw the Brahmin boy slowly walking into another room. Sundari’s father followed him. This room was sparsely furnished with just a wooden plank on the floor and a banana leaf in front of it. The boy bowed and gestured with his hands to the plank. Sundari’s father pointed a finger at himself, and the boy gave a slow, measured nod. The man sat down, and the boy served him.

The meal was fit for a king. There was curried potatoes charred just right and then fried in sesame oil. There was an earthen pot of spicy, fragrant sambar cooked with succulent pieces of white pumpkin. There were three different pickles made from different types of unripe mangoes. A stack of freshly fried appalams the size of dinner plates stood like the white rook next to the banana leaf. Another clay pot contained fresh curd so white that it was like a slice of the moon. There were so many vessels on the floor that Sundari’s father caught his breath in astonishment. As he sat the young boy placed another banana leaf and offered to pour water from a golden lotah. After his hands were cleaned, he dug into the food. When he was done, the boy bowed again and with rapid movements, cleaned up the space.

When he exited the room he found the Brahmin boy waiting for him outside. The lad began to walk, and Sundari’s father followed him to the main hall, glancing every now and then at the massive paintings. The oil lamps flickered brighter now, and the soothing strains of Carnatic music drifted from the ceiling. There were no speakers in sight, but at this point he didn’t find that surprising. The time he didn’t spend circumambulating idols in temples, instead, he had used to familiarize himself with the various Carnatic ragas. He paused momentarily to identify the raga from the notes of the flute. It was hamsadhvani, a mellifluous raga that shone best in the early hours of the night. He gave the contended sigh of a connoisseur and moved on.

The main door was still open, and through it the verdant garden, and behind that the Bay of Bengal serenely lapped. He couldn’t tell if the rains had stopped or if the view from the bungalow was always this way. The boy now gestured to a divan. A hookah bubbled invitingly next to it. He sat down and took a drag and inhaled the sandalwood-scented smoke. He exhaled a languid cloud of blue smoke which, as it floated away, came alive with many sparks like a miniature thundercloud. He felt rejuvenated and leapt to his feet. Suddenly, his court case didn’t weigh on him as much as it had the entire day. He rushed out into the garden, consumed with a heightened sense of euphoria.

Now he caught sight in this Eden a single yellow rose in full bloom on a splendid rosebush. His heart raced, and he dashed to the flower. It was a lovely specimen, so full of color and curves, something worthy of a god’s offering. In his blind devotion to Sundari, he leaned forward, and plucked the rose.

At the very moment, from behind him he heard a leonine growl.

The god was a beast: half man, half lion. He stood at the doorway, dressed in an immaculately tailored dark blue suit. His golden mane undulated like seaweed in calm waters. His silver whiskers quivered. Where his suit ended on his hands, manicured fingers appeared and at their tips, five ivory claws gleamed. His hulking shape was tangible through his fine clothes. He took a step forward, and Sundari’s father trembled.

“You partook of my hospitality,” he said. His voice was clear but pulsed with animal electricity. “Yet, you steal?”

“I…Sir…I just…” Sundari’s father mumbled. “Sundari asked for a single yellow rose, and…I…”

The beast took another step forward, and he grew in size. “And I ask for Sundari.”

The man hung his head and wrung his hands, realizing the futility of saying a word.

The god shrank in size and approached him. He placed a hand on his shoulder as if in consolation. “I know people in the courts. Your case will move forward.” He turned and retreated into his cavernous bungalow. Without facing him, he said, “I’ll have someone send for her. A ride awaits you now.”

The palanquin bearers ran through the night, their rhythmic exhalations in sync with the sighing of the ocean. There were four of them, built like oxen. Each held a lantern in one hand and carried one of the teak poles of the palanquin on his opposite shoulder. In perfect synchrony they hoisted it on their backs and set foot. If Sundari closed her eyes, she’d thought she was flying, so light were their footsteps.

They deposited her in the lion bungalow, and slipped into the mist and vanished just as how they’d appeared at her doorstep. Sundari parted the silk curtains and stepped out, her tinkling anklets filling the silence of the crickets. The Brahmin boy appeared, bowed with courtesy, and hurried to fetch her suitcase. Without saying a word, he zipped into the house, and went up the massive stairs.

Sundari walked into the bungalow, the immensity of the cavernous interiors sending chills down her spine. Here was a painting of Arjuna receiving the wise words of Lord Krishna on the battlefield. The painting was so realistic she felt like she could step into it and feel the pulse of the situation. Lord Krishna’s halo grew larger and smaller as she stared at it and his beatific smile seemed fill his face endlessly. For a second she thought he looked in her direction, but she blinked her eyes rapidly, for how could a painting move? She walked away from it, and saw a little wooden elephant carved out of teak. She squatted next to it and ran her fingers down its trunk and tusks, admiring its craftsmanship when she spotted motion in an adjacent room.

She picked up her sari, and moved to the other room, and came face to face with the beast sitting in a plush leather chair. A Chinese pot with glowing embers on it threw up tendrils of smoke in cursive blue. He sat cross-legged on the chair, the day’s The Hindu neatly folded on his lap, the cryptic crossword half done.

“Welcome,” he said. His voice was a purr. “I hope I don’t scare you.”

Sundari entered the room slowly, biting the edge of her lower lip. Her brows furrowed ever so slightly, raising her single point of a bindi, before relaxing. “I’m at your service.” She lowered her gaze, for his sight was too magnificent for her human eyes. “I thank you for helping my father.”

A casual wave of the hand. Dismissive claws.

“I hope you find everything to your taste.” He clapped once. The Brahmin boy appeared. “If your heart desires anything, he’ll be at your service.”

Sundari bowed. The man-lion reached for the pen and inspected the crossword. She slowly retreated from the room, turned and saw the boy waiting for her. She followed him down the warren of corridors, and was shown her room.

It was a world unlike any other. The travails of her daily existence simply melted and disappeared here. There were no crows to awake her from her sleep, no vegetable vendors crowing at the top of their lungs and distracting her during her morning rituals, no buses to catch, no college to worry about, and no cooking to fret over. Here, she simply was.

She was a child conceived on the tea slopes of Ooty. The god had sensed her desire for cool climes and had set up the bungalow as such. She spent her time exploring the labyrinthine palace, stopping at rosewater fountains with stone gargoyles to wash her face or to pluck succulent, glowing fruits from trees that grew in the vast orchard. She sewed when she felt like it or wrote her thoughts in a diary. She tried to find the kitchen from where copious amounts of perfect meals emerged, but whichever passageway she took and whichever room she entered she couldn’t find it.

A few days later when she expressed interest in learning pottery, the boy showed her a studio that opened to the beach. Inside was a potter’s wheel and a kiln. He walked her through the process of kneading the clay, throwing it on the wheel, steadying it, growing it out, and fashioning a pot out of the earth. He fired the kiln and finished the pots and plates. After a few weeks when she began to get better at the craft, she told the boy that she’d like to gift a few of them to her father. He bowed, packed them in an embroidered cloth, and left.

A god he might have been, but he was still one with carnal needs. He must feed, and his carnivorous appetite could only be assuaged with blood. When he hunted, it was the essence of terror. The spoor of an alarmed deer or a water buffalo and the ensuing chase aroused the latent beast in him. In those moments, he will shed his suave exterior and lean towards his feral side. After he has fed, he will return to his abode, wiping his maw with a linen napkin. He then sits on the wooden swing, unfolds his little silver box and carefully folds himself, with the finesse of an origami master, a paan stuffed with areca nuts, tobacco, bits of sweet and savory things, and then places it in his mouth.

Who was he? Lord Narasimha.

What has he done? Disemboweled a pseudo-immortal rakshasa with his bare fingernails and rid the world of a demon.

That had been his pinnacle. Everything since then had been hollow. Gods were humans too, only with a distorted sense of mortality. They are born and they die just like everyone else, just not in the same timeframe as humans do. A few millennia could sometimes drip like wax from a slow burning candle, and the gods tended to want some company.

When Lord Narasimha was around Sundari, he found himself breathing faster. Sometimes, words wouldn’t form fully and looking into the almond, kohl-laced eyes of his beautiful guest, he wondered if she was man’s gift to godkind, a singular specimen of immaculate beauty and composure.

He requested her presence each night, and she dutifully obeyed. It rented his heart asunder to think that she considered herself a prisoner, albeit a well-treated one. The hollowness that she left in him each time she returned to her chambers was filled with such a longing vacuum that he requested that she stay another week. “At least until your father’s case is resolved,” he said one night, which, he assured her was being expedited due to his connections.

They walked each night on the powdered sugar-like sands of his private beach on Pleasant Nagar. Here, the skies were always clear and the entire splendor of the universe unfurled itself to their delight like a magician’s tablecloth of a million diamonds and a crescent moon. The waves lapped gently, and the massive skeleton of a beached schooner provided a spot for them to repose and converse.

She never looked into his eyes, always demurely gazed away. All he wanted to do was to lift her chin with the tip of his claw, but the thought of laying a single scratch on her porcelain chin terrified him. He sometimes mewled in pain.

“Read me a story,” he’d say, and she’d reply, “What would you prefer, milord?”

She was blind to him, and that filled him with a palpitating want. He was a god, and one of the things gods liked was to hear about themselves. “Read the story of when I was a fish,” he’d say, or “Let’s hear about when I killed that demon,” and she would bow (as the Brahmin boy had shown her how to), clear her throat, and read from one of the many books from his library.

They spent the evenings this way by the sparkling moonlit waters in tense company, he bewitched by her beauty, and she simply existing, thoughtless, desireless. When her eyes began to flutter, and sleep lured her, he rose and they walked back to his bungalow. Under the marble arches where they’d have to part ways, he’d hold out his arm, the fur visible from under his suit, and she’d smile and look away with the shyness of a girl with good standing. He’d sigh with his eyes, and walk to his chambers with his head held high, and bury himself in opium and music.

When the letter came bearing the news that the court had successfully ruled in her father’s favor, she leapt with joy and ran out, and saw the palanquin already waiting for her. She turned just in time to see the curtain behind his room close shut. She returned home and threw herself at her father. He held Sundari tight and lifted her off the ground, and swung her around the way he used to when she was a babe.

“All our problems are dissolved now,” he said, hugging her once more. “Oh! Sundari! How I missed you, my child.” He leaned back and inspected her. “You look radiant.”

She hugged her father, her pure heart swelling with joy. “I missed you, Appa. I hope you’ve been eating well.” She then tucked the edge of her sari, and walked to the kitchen. “I must cook you a meal.” She spun around and snapped her fingers. “I’ll make you what I loved when I was his guest.”

“What’s it?”

“Bittergourd slices cooked slowly in a creamy white sauce.”

“And we’ll eat them from the plates that I made.” Saying that she got to work.

Many days passed, and Sundari’s life returned to normalcy. She woke up to the crows, haggled with vegetable vendors over the day’s produce, bathed and tied up her hair in a cotton towel, boiled the milk, prepared coffee for her father, and their lunches. At college, she buried herself in her books, catching up with what she had missed. She returned home by bus and ferry, stopping at the open market to buy more vegetables if needed before hurrying home to prepare dinner.

It was one such day when she returned home that she found the Brahmin boy waiting for her outside her home. She dropped the bag of produce and ran to him.

“What is it?” she asked. She shook him hard. “Tell me.”

The boy’s face was long and oozed with sadness. He pointed to the palanquin that was materializing around the corner. She wrote a hasty letter to her father, and hopped into the palanquin. It bounced noticeably this time as they sped through the streets. They made their way through the busy market and while nobody could see them, she saw everything: the sellers hawking their wares, housewives bargaining for prices, stray dogs chasing each other in mock fights, children playing running-and-catch, she saw it all slip by the gauzy silk curtains.

When they reached the lion bungalow, she jumped out of the palanquin and ran indoors. With confident steps she found his airy chambers. The curtains fluttered like white flags of surrender, revealing a patch of the darkening sea each time. The beast lay on his bed, broken and gaunt. After her departure he could not bring himself to hunt anymore. The petrified creatures that once aroused his bloodlust only made him confused. He spent nights pacing the empty halls and punching holes into the sides of the old schooner.

Gods are mortal. They suffer their pains just as we do, only more vividly. He did not want to bother Sundari, he said, but if he was about to leave, he wanted to see her one last time.

Sundari’s eyes filled with tears now. Her alabaster forehead crumpled in anguish. She smoothed his golden mane. It was damp with sweat. She reached for and found his weak hand. She lifted it and pressed her lips against it. When she looked up, instead of the beast, lay a handsome man with a leonine face and a cherubic smile.