✵ I. A Festival of Light, and the Thought of Knives
The year Narasimha turned properly thirteen, Uyyalawada glowed.
It was a festival day.
Oil lamps lined thresholds.
Kolams bloomed in white curves across courtyards.
Children ran around with sweets and sparklers, screaming as if the gods themselves had lit fire on their sticks.
In the main courtyard, Narasimha sat cross-legged in front of a low table, pretending to supervise distribution of sweets and actual duties.
In truth, he was watching.
Not the lamps.
The faces.
The festival had drawn people beyond their ordinary circles:
petty officials from nearby towns,
merchants who traded with Company posts,
brawny "guards" whose eyes moved a little too sharply,
and a few men who laughed too loud when nothing was funny.
His Trinetra reports had already flagged some of them.
Men who:
beat debtors bloody behind closed doors,
stole from temple donations,
ran small gangs that harassed widows for land,
fed information to hostile dacoits… and then went to sleep peacefully.
He sipped sweet payasam slowly, lips twitching.
We see you, he thought. All of you. Trinetra's eyes are everywhere.
Then another, harder thought followed.
But seeing is not always enough.
Information had already learned to bite.
Trinetra had teeth.
But there were still… pieces it could not touch.
Men clever enough to:
act through intermediaries,
never sign their own names,
hide behind British rules when called out.
The law, such as it was, could be turned like a shield.
He could not simply drag them into the court and shout:
"This man is filth. Remove him."
He needed something else.
A hand that moved in shadow, where law could not—or would not—reach.
From beside him, a little hand tugged his sleeve.
"Anna, more sweet!" his younger cousin demanded, already chewing.
"Greedy demon," Narasimha muttered, handing him another.
He watched the boy run off, then looked back at the crowd.
Lamps burned.
Flutes played.
Incense curled in gentle spirals.
Underneath it all, he saw veins of rot.
He sighed.
"Lovely," he murmured. "Festival outside, strategies for morally acceptable crime inside my head."
❖ II. "We Need a Shadow Hand"
That night, long after the last lamp had been snuffed, Narasimha sat with his father, Ramu, and three of the elders in the inner hall.
The only light now was a single deepam near the wall.
He had been quiet for a while.
Finally, he spoke.
"Appa," he said slowly, "Trinetra can see many things now. Trade, taxes, dacoits, foreign ships, petty officers… But some snakes sit coiled just inside the thorn-bush of 'law'. We cannot pull them out without tearing our own skin."
His father's gaze sharpened.
"Whom have you been thinking about?" he asked.
Narasimha didn't name names.
He told stories.
A land broker who cheated widows with forged thumbprints, safe because the local peon "certified" them.
A man who took offerings meant for temple repairs and funnelled them into funding thugs—protected because he loudly performed rituals.
A minor muscleman who unofficially collected "protection money" from traders, always smiling in front of British officers.
"They are small men, mostly," Narasimha said. "Not conquering generals. But they are… rot. And rot spreads. We can't always wait for them to attack us openly before we act."
An elder frowned.
"We have courts," he said. "We have caste councils, village panchayats—"
"And Company 'law'," another added bitterly.
"Yes," Narasimha agreed. "And all these work sometimes. For certain types of crime. But some men are good at being bad. They leave no easy proof. They bribe, they flatter, they frighten. Officially, they are clean."
He looked up, eyes hard.
"For them," he said quietly, "we need something else. A shadow hand."
Ramu's brows rose.
"You mean… killers?" he asked bluntly. "Assassins? You want to start an assassin club, kanna?"
Narasimha's lips twisted.
"I want to start a solution," he said dryly. "But no, not a mindless assassin club. We are not here to choke every barking dog. I want… a small group. Highly controlled. Dharmically constrained. People who can carry out precise actions when we cannot move openly."
"Actions like…?" his father prompted.
"Like making sure a thug's hand mysteriously breaks before he can sign off on fake land seizure," Narasimha replied. "Or a blackmailer's stash of letters appears in a British officer's desk. Or a repeat predator finds himself abandoned and beaten by 'unknown bandits' on a far road, alive, but too frightened to return."
He met his father's eyes.
"We have eyes," he said. "Now we need shadows."
✢ III. Debate in the Inner Hall
There was silence.
One elder spoke first, voice cautious.
"This path is dangerous, Dora," he said. "Once men taste power in shadows, they may start settling personal scores behind your back."
Another nodded.
"Also," he added, "even if we are right, if the British catch wind that we host 'secret punishers', they will scream 'terror' and send soldiers."
Narasimha listened.
"I know," he said. "That is why this cannot be big. Or loud. Or independent of my direct oversight. This must be part of Trinetra—not above it."
Ramu scratched his chin.
"What would you call such a group?" he asked.
Narasimha had already been thinking.
"Trinetra is the third eye," he said. "It sees. This new unit will be its shadow circle, working only where light cannot reach without breaking everything."
He wrote on the palm leaf:
छाया मंडल — Chhāyā Mandal – Shadow Mandal.
"This will be a very small wing under Trinetra," he continued. "Not brutes, not thugs. People trained in silence, patience, restraint. They will do three kinds of work:
Infiltration – go where we cannot, hear what others hide.
Interference – remove or disrupt tools of wicked men: documents, weapons, secret meeting places.
Impact – when absolutely necessary, deliver fear or pain directly—but with clear limits."
He raised three fingers.
"No killing out of anger. No harming innocents 'by mistake'. No acting for personal revenge. Any of these, and Chhaya Mandal dies."
His father studied him.
"You realize," he said quietly, "that once we cross this line, we cannot pretend to be merely 'good landlords' anymore. We become… something else."
Narasimha held his gaze.
"Then let us be something else," he said. "Not monsters. Not saints. Surgeons. We cut where rot spreads—no more, no less."
An elder who had mostly listened until then finally spoke.
"There is… another danger," he said. "In trying to be precise with punishment, you may begin to enjoy being the one who decides. Kings have fallen that way."
Narasimha's expression flickered.
"I am aware," he said. "That is why I am asking you now: if you ever see me going too far—if Chhaya Mandal becomes my toy to crush opposers and not a scalpel—stop me. Even if you must go to the gods with it."
Ramu snorted.
"You think we need invitation?" he said. "We will hit you with rice-pounding mortar if needed."
Relief loosened the tension in the hall.
Finally, his father nodded, slow and grave.
"Very well," he said. "You may start this… Shadow Mandal. But with conditions:
I must know every operation you sanction.
No action that risks dragging innocent families into ruin.
And every member must be chosen not only for skill, but for conscience."
He paused.
"And we start small. One test. If it becomes beast instead of tool, we shut it down before it feeds."
Narasimha bowed his head slightly.
"Agreed," he said.
At that moment, a line was crossed.
Not loud.
No drums.
Just an idea accepted.
Above, dharma itself tilted, watching carefully.
❖ IV. Heaven Hears "Chhaya Mandal"
In Vaikuntha, the phrase chimed through the subtle worlds like a struck bell.
"Chhaya Mandal," Lakshmi repeated, mouth tightening slightly. "Our son has started naming shadow circles."
Parvati sighed.
"Children grow," she said. "First toys, then tools, then… this."
Saraswati's eyes were serious.
"Shadow work is part of rule," she conceded. "Even in old yugas, kings had agents who did what public courts could not. The difference between adharmic and dharmic shadows is simple—but hard: intention and limit."
Maheshwara opened his eyes fully.
"He has asked his elders to watch him," he observed. "That is a good sign. Demons do not invite others to hold their leash."
Vishnu's gaze travelled down to the boy in the hall, hands ink-stained, eyes tired but steady.
"If he refused to ever touch darkness," he said, "he would be too weak for Kaliyuga. If he dove into it eagerly, he would become a tyrant. He is doing the third thing: walking the edge, complaining the whole way. That is a surprisingly safe sign."
Brahma wrote in fine script:
Trinetra (sight) + Chhaya Mandal (action) — integrated. Watch for balance.
Lakshmi muttered under her breath:
"And if he starts assassinating prospective daughters-in-law in some future life, I will personally revoke his boon."
Parvati choked back a laugh.
"Devi…" she warned, but her eyes sparkled.
✢ V. Choosing Shadows
Creating Chhaya Mandal wasn't as simple as gathering the fiercest fighters and saying, "Go."
Violent men were easy to find.
Controlled men were not.
Narasimha sat with a short list.
Names that had surfaced in Trinetra reports as:
reliable,
quiet,
capable of confronting danger without boasting.
A former bandit who had left the life after a child died in one of his raids and now served as a guard, always the last to eat and the first to fight.
A woman whose husband had been killed by thugs over a tax dispute, who now trained younger girls in using sticks and ropes to defend themselves, doing more than local officials ever had.
A temple drummer who moved between villages as if he were made of wind—who had once, on his own initiative, walked through the night to warn of a coming raid and then melted away before anyone could praise him.
He summoned them one by one, in different ways, over several days.
Not to a secret cave.
A simple back room in the grain house, where people coming and going looked normal.
He told each of them similar words:
"You have seen injustice that regular pathways did not fix. You have also seen that we are… doing things differently here."
Then:
"I need a few people who can walk where law is blind, but dharma still demands answer. Work that requires strong hands and stronger restraint. If you join, you will seldom be praised, often be blamed, and always be watched. You will not grow rich, but you will sleep with a different kind of peace."
Not all agreed.
A few shook their heads.
"I am done with blades," the former bandit said at first. "I swing one again, even for justice, and I will start dreaming of easy coin."
Narasimha didn't push.
"Then don't," he said. "Guard children and fields. That is also important. If one day you feel your hand has balance again, come."
Others agreed after only a short pause.
The woman listened silently, then spoke.
"If this work prevents one family from seeing what I saw," she said, "I will do it. But if you ever use me to crush those who simply disagree with you, not harm others, then I will walk away—and I will not stay silent about your shadows."
Narasimha met her gaze.
"Good," he said. "I need people who will threaten me also, not just others."
Within a fortnight, he had nine people.
Nine was enough to start with.
Nine shadows.
❖ VI. Training in the Ravine
There was, near Uyyalawada's lands, a dry ravine—once a water channel, now a scar in the earth with rocky walls and stubborn bushes.
It was perfect.
Hidden from the main roads,
visible from certain angles if you knew where to look,
echoing footsteps in a way that made stealth harder—good for training.
There, at dawn and dusk, Chhaya Mandal's first members gathered.
Narasimha didn't train them in elaborate martial arts forms.
That would come later, in other ways, with other teachers.
For now, he focused on principles.
"First," he said, standing on a rock, voice carrying, "you are not ghosts. You are people. You can die. Remember this. Heroic fantasies are for bards. We work within limits."
They nodded, faces serious.
"Second," he continued, "we are not here to impress the world. If someone sings your name in fear or worship, that is likely a sign that you have been too loud."
A few small smiles.
"Third: we use four weapons more than any blade.
Silence – what you do not say.
Observation – what you notice before others.
Timing – when you act.
Restraint – knowing when not to act."
He drilled them.
Not just in how to strike without sound, but in:
walking across gravel without crunching,
climbing a rocky wall without sending a cascade down,
slipping through a small gathering as an unnoticed servant,
reading from a man's posture whether fear or arrogance sat in his spine.
He taught them simple herbal mixtures:
Not exotic poisons that melted organs.
But things that:
put a man to sleep for a day,
made hands shake for a few hours,
caused nausea that forced someone to cancel a meeting.
"These," he said, holding up a pouch of dried leaves, "are for disrupting, not murdering. A man who spends a whole night at stool cannot attend a secret meeting to sign away village land."
They laughed quietly.
"You think this is funny?" he added. "It is. Also effective."
The woman Sri, who had lost her husband, became one of his sharpest trainees.
She was not the strongest.
But she listened.
And she understood quickly that fear was often more powerful than pain.
"If we leave one man alive with a trembling story of being grabbed in the dark and warned," she said after an exercise, "his tongue will do more work for us than ten bodies in the river."
"Exactly," Narasimha said. "We are not building a slaughterhouse. We are building rumour with purpose."
✢ VII. A Case for Shadows
The first real test came sooner than expected.
A Trinetra report arrived from a town one day's ride away.
It was… ugly.
A local land middleman—Sattanayaka—had been working with a small Company clerk to trap farmers.
The pattern:
encourage them to take grain loans at inflated interest,
deliberately delay their tax papers,
then "rescue" them by offering to pay their dues to Company in exchange for land deeds as collateral.
On paper, everything looked legal.
Farmers signed under pressure, not fully understanding.
Within two years, Sattanayaka owned more land than some small chiefs.
Trinetra saw it through:
temple whispers,
broken-voiced complaints at wells,
a barber's gossip about "new rich man's house".
If Narasimha tried to challenge him openly, Sattanayaka would wave papers, show signed deeds, point to "proper procedure."
Company officials, seeing nothing that violated their revenue, would shrug.
"Legal," they would say.
This was exactly the type of rot Chhaya Mandal was meant to touch.
In the inner hall, the council debated.
Elders seethed.
"We should drag him here and make him eat every torn deed," one muttered.
"And then?" Narasimha asked. "Company will say we assaulted an 'enterprising subject' and 'obstructed legal processes.' They will use that to enter our lands with more excuse."
He looked at the map.
"We need to break his grip without giving them clean excuse," he said.
He outlined a plan.
Three parts:
Exposure – find proof of his illegal moves. Not just unjust ones. Fake interest entries, altered records, extra charges not mentioned in official papers.
Severance – break his connection with the Company clerk. Make the clerk fear being caught and distance himself.
Fear – show Sattanayaka that something larger than him is watching. Enough to freeze him from repeating the pattern.
This would be Chhaya Mandal's first surgery.
❖ VIII. The Mandal Moves
Night.
Near Sattanayaka's house, shadows rippled.
A temple drummer—now Trinetra anchor—had already mapped routine:
which lamps stayed lit,
how often the clerk visited,
where documents were stored.
From that knowledge, Chhaya Mandal's small team split.
One pair, including Sri, posed earlier that week as distant relatives of a farmer, weeping and begging Sattanayaka for mercy, getting shouted at and thrown out.
While they cried, they counted:
steps, rooms, guards.
Now, Sri and a lean youth approached from the back, slipping through a side garden wall climbed earlier during training.
Inside, they moved like dust in dim light.
They didn't look for dramatic treasure chests.
They looked for sloppy habits.
They found them.
Sattanayaka, like many greedy men, was careful in certain ways and careless in others.
He kept copies of some "creative" calculations separate from the main records.
Not out of stupidity.
Out of arrogance.
He believed no one would ever look there.
In a hidden compartment beneath a low shelf, Sri's fingers brushed what they sought:
Loose papers listing extra charges not filed with any official office.
Estimated yields that had been falsified.
Names of farmers with "collateral" notes scribbled more crudely—personal leverage, not legal.
Silent, they took only some.
Not all.
Enough to prove pattern.
They left a few out of place—subtly.
To make him later feel something had been touched without knowing what.
At the same time, outside town, another Chhaya pair intercepted the Company clerk on his way back from a visit.
They didn't attack him like bandits.
They staged what looked like a robbery by opportunistic thieves:
masks,
shouts,
a scuffle.
In the confusion, the clerk's bag "fell"—and one of Chhaya's people swiftly swapped his neat stack of letters for a slightly altered set prepared earlier:
Identical in most ways, but with one crucial addition:
A folded dossier, seemingly from an anonymous complainant, detailing Sattanayaka's unofficial charges, with copied evidence slips (from the earlier raid) and a warning that higher officials might investigate.
The "thieves" then ran, leaving him bruised but alive.
The clerk, shaken, later opened his bag at home and went pale.
He had no idea who had sent the complaint.
But he recognized the risk.
The next day, he avoided Sattanayaka entirely, suddenly "too busy" and "afraid of being seen with him."
Trinetra's eyes watched.
Sattanayaka felt the distance.
He felt his papers disturbed.
He felt his ally drawing back.
He grew… nervous.
✢ IX. The Night of the Whisper
The third part came a few nights later.
Sattanayaka woke to cold on his neck.
A hand—gloved, firm—covered his mouth as he tried to shout.
He opened his eyes to darkness, with only a faint outline of a figure nearby.
Another shape moved in the room, touching things.
A voice, low and controlled, spoke in his ear.
"Listen," it said. "We are not here to kill you. If we wanted you dead, you would not have woken up."
His heart pounded.
"Who are—" he tried to mumble.
The hand pressed tighter.
"Ask no questions," the voice said. "You like papers. Numbers. Let us speak in those words."
He felt something shoved roughly into his hands.
"Look tomorrow at your hidden bundle under the shelf," the whisper continued. "Count how many pages are missing. Then ask yourself: if those pages ever walk to higher Company officers—you know, the ones who dislike losing face—how many teeth you will still have after their questions."
Sattanayaka's sweating increased.
"You think your clever games with interest and collateral are unseen?" the voice went on. "They are not. The gods saw. The land saw. And now… we see."
He trembled.
"What do you want?" he managed.
"Stop," the voice said simply. "Return the land you took by twisting debt. Tear up the worst of those extra charges. You have made enough off their misery. If you do this in a way that looks like 'generosity'—even better. Sing your own praises. But if you continue this pattern… next time, the darkness in your room will not speak so politely."
The hand lifted.
By the time he gathered courage to lunge for a lamp, the room was empty.
Only his own panicked breathing filled the air.
The next day, he crawled to his hidden shelf.
He found the disturbance.
He found some incriminating papers missing.
His clerk avoided him.
A farmer, emboldened by some unknown hope, dared to ask for leniency—and for the first time, Sattanayaka granted it.
In the coming weeks, he quietly reversed several of the most unjust seizures, repackaging them as "acts of charity in difficult times."
People praised him.
He slept badly.
❖ X. The Line Holds
Back in Uyyalawada, Sri and the others reported.
No one was killed.
No innocent households rattled.
A predator's teeth had been blunted, his grip loosened.
The land had breathed a bit easier.
In the inner hall, after hearing the full account, Narasimha sat silent for a long moment.
One elder broke the quiet.
"You chose mercy," he said. "You could have made him disappear."
"He would not be missed," another muttered.
Narasimha looked down at his hands.
"I wanted to," he admitted. "For a moment. But then I thought… what is our goal? To feel the satisfaction of ending one man? Or to change behaviour across many?"
He looked up.
"News travels," he said. "Farmers now whisper that 'someone' forced him to be fair. Other greedy men will hear. They will not know who we are. They will only know: when we go too far, something unseen may come."
He exhaled.
"If we start killing every first snake," he continued, "we will train people to fear death, not injustice. Fear of death is everywhere. It fades. Fear of being exposed and forced to live with shame… that can last longer."
His father watched him quietly.
"You have stepped into shadow," he said. "So far, your feet are still on rock, not mud."
He smiled faintly.
"Good work," he added. "Now do not let your pride make you slip."
Narasimha snorted.
"Pride? I am just thinking of how many new reports this will generate," he grumbled. "Every snake we scare will send twenty rumours. I need a second me."
✶ XI. Heaven's Verdict on the First Cut
In Vaikuntha, the scene replayed:
the shadow in the room,
the trembling land broker,
farmers quietly getting land back,
no blood spilled.
Lakshmi nodded slowly.
"This is… acceptable," she said. "He has used fear and cleverness more than steel."
Parvati's eyes were still worried, but less so.
"If he had ordered simple slaughter," she murmured, "I would have gone to him in dream myself."
Saraswati added,
"He is learning that justice is not only about ending bodies. It is about adjusting patterns. Today, one man returns land. Tomorrow, ten others think twice before laying such traps."
Maheshwara's gaze was steady.
"Shadow Mandal is still small," he observed. "As long as it remains guided, not allowed to grow wild with ego, it will be an asset. If ever it snaps, we will intervene."
Vishnu smiled.
"And somewhere, in a future age," he mused, "when humans build their own secret services and think they are very clever with 'black ops' and 'covert missions'… this boy will watch them with tired eyes and think, 'I was doing this when you were still arguing over land tax.'"
Brahma underlined his earlier note:
Chhaya Mandal – first operation: Behavioural correction, not execution. Balance holds (for now).
❖ XII. Shadows, Paperwork, and Self-Annoyance
Later that night, Narasimha sat alone with his palm leaves.
He had to update Trinetra's internal record:
Not just weather and trade.
Now also shadow actions.
He created a new section.
He did not write, "We scared Sattanayaka and made him behave."
He wrote:
Node: S. — Land consolidator, pattern of exploitative lending. Intervention: Level 1 (Infiltration, Exposure, Fear). Result: Partial reversal of harm, reduced future risk. No visible link to Uyyalawada.
He stared at the words.
They looked… cold.
But necessary.
He rubbed his forehead.
"Wonderful," he muttered. "I have become both lion and bureaucrat of my own shadows."
He reached for water, then froze as a thought pricked him.
"Wait."
He added a last line:
Monitor after six months. If pattern resumes, escalate.
Then he set the stylus down.
"That's it," he told himself. "No more shadow actions unless three conditions meet:
Law truly cannot or will not act.
Pattern of harm is clear, not based on rumours alone.
There is a way to act that does not unleash chaos."
He said it aloud, as if swearing.
Outside, a night breeze slipped through the ventilator.
Inside, the boy who would be an immortal king scowled at his own rules.
"If I keep making these conditions," he grumbled, "I will spend eternity asking myself for permission."
Then he sighed.
"Good," he added softly. "Better that than becoming the thing I'm trying to stop."
✵ XIII. The World Learns a New Word: "Shadow"
In the weeks that followed, small stories spread.
Not linked.
Not traced.
Just… whispered.
"A moneylender in this town suddenly eased terms, saying he had a dream of burning in hell."
"A thug in that village woke covered in bruises, claiming he was beaten by 'unseen hands' near the tank."
"A petty officer found his secret bribe ledger missing and resigned shortly after, pretending illness."
People did not connect them.
They just added a new flavour to old fear:
"Somewhere, in the south, there is a Dora's house that does not wait for British courts. They say… if you go too far, a shadow comes."
Some dismissed it as fantasy.
Others crossed themselves, prayed more, or traded more carefully.
Among those who liked to twist law for sport, some shifted the board:
Maybe do their worst far from Uyyalawada roads.
Maybe avoid business with certain villages.
It was enough.
That was all Chhaya Mandal needed.
Not glory.
Just hesitation in wicked hearts.
✶ XIV. Closing of "When the Third Eye Grew Hands"
By the end of his thirteenth year, Narasimha's toolkit had expanded:
Trinetra saw.
Trinetra thought.
And now, through Chhaya Mandal, Trinetra could touch—carefully, in shadow.
He remained:
a boy who groaned about ledgers,
a son who still leaned into his mother's hand when she massaged his temples,
a cousin who occasionally tripped over children's toys and swore under his breath.
But he was also:
a strategist with maps sprawled across floors,
a lord who moved grain like water to prevent famine,
and now, quietly,
a chieftain with a hand in the dark that nudged the balance of fear back toward dharma.
Somewhere far in the future, when the world would gasp at men in masks and capes, arguing about "vigilantes" and "extra-legal justice," an immortal lion would watch with very old eyes and think:
In Kaliyuga, justice was never only in court.
Sometimes, it walked in shadow,
praying not to lose itself.
For now, all that was still ahead.
In this chapter, on this night, a thirteen-year-old sighed, shuffled his palm leaves into some sort of order, and muttered:
"Tomorrow, I have to check on Mysore cloth, coastal flags, Hyderabad nobles, Tamil saints, and now shadow follow-ups. Bhagavan, I swear, if my next life is not a peaceful cow on some quiet hill, I am filing complaint."
Somewhere above, Vishnu laughed softly.
"Complaint received," he said. "Decision… pending."
And the merged world—of Bharat, Marvel, kings, spies, and coming storms—rolled quietly into the next dawn.
✦ End of Chapter 14 – "Shadow Mandal – When the Third Eye Grew Hands" ✦