✦ 𑁍 Chronicle Note: 1844 CE – The Year of Whispers and Sparks 𑁍
The map of the south, on paper, was finally calm.
Borders had settled after the storms of war.
Treaties penned in faraway capitals bound cannons and fleets.
The Mandalic Dharmic Federation was no longer a rumor, but a fact.
But maps only showed land.
They did not demonstrate how easy it was to set hearts on fire.
In 1844, the British could not march openly against the Lion in the South.
So they tried something older and cheaper than war:
They fed anger and watched to see if Bharat would burn herself.
I. Rumours Like Smoke
In a high-ceilinged chamber in Calcutta, shutters half-drawn against the humid light, a group of East India Company officials studied a sprawling map of the subcontinent.
Red ink marked British forts and presidencies. Newer, darker strokes marked the territory of the southern empire, spreading across Rayalaseema, Andhra, Tamilakam, Karnataka, Kerala, and now deep into the Deccan.
"He has gone too far," Sir Edmund Halford muttered. "Goa, Hyderabad, half of the Deccan and almost all the southern ports… If we lose the Indian Ocean trade to one native power, the board in London will hang us by our necks."
A junior officer, eager, said, "We could muster more regiments from Bombay and Bengal—"
Halford cut him off with a sharp gesture.
"And fight another long, bleeding campaign in terrain he now knows better than our own surveyors? No. Europe is tired of paying to die in Indian dust. Our last war proved that."
Another man, with a bureaucrat's thin smile, tapped the map where little circles had been inked around temple towns and market cities.
"Then we make him bleed from inside," he said quietly. "We could not break his lines. Perhaps we can break his people's."
The room stilled.
"How?" someone asked.
The man shrugged lightly.
"Old method," he said. "Worked well enough in other presidencies. Find fault lines—religion, caste, old grudges. Feed rumours. Support preachers and pamphleteers who shout louder about outrage than about God. Let Hindus and Muslims glare at each other instead of at us."
"Will it work in the south?" another officer asked doubtfully. "Their villages are… inconveniently intermixed. Temples and dargahs on the same streets. And this Emperor of theirs—he plays at dharma and law. They… respect him."
Halford's eyes were hard.
"Respect is not armour," he said. "If enough men believe their neighbour is their enemy, even a beloved king will struggle."
He traced a finger over a cluster of towns on the Tungabhadra, Krishna, and Godavari.
"Start here," he ordered. "Where weavers, potters, and traders share lanes but not always the same prayers. We'll pay for scribes, agitators. No obvious fingerprints. Our hands stay clean on the report."
Coins changed hands that week in Calcutta.
Weeks later, words began to change hands in the south:
muttered in mosques after prayers,
whispered in temple courtyards after evening aarti,
printed in grubby pamphlets by unknown presses.
Rumours moved like smoke on a slow wind.
II. Reports on the Emperor's Desk
In Kesarinagara, Narasimha Reddy sat with his ministers in the inner council hall. Outside, the city hummed—markets, schools, drill-grounds—and somewhere a baby wailed, only to be soothed. Inside, the air felt heavier than usual.
Rama Sastry, Mahamantri, slid a thin stack of reports across the table.
"These," he said, "are not about tax, land, or trade."
Narasimha raised a brow.
"Then they are about something more dangerous," he said dryly, taking the stack. "Let me see."
He read quickly, eyes scanning neat Telugu and clipped Persian script.
"'Scuffle between Hindu youths and Muslim butchers near mosque lane in Kalyandur. The meat stall was placed on the old route of the temple procession. Stones thrown. One injured.'"
He flipped.
"Argument between temple orator and dargah imam in Shahipet over loud chanting during prayer hours. Sermons grew sharper. Youths on both sides are repeating heated lines."
His lips thinned slightly.
"Pamphlets of unknown origin circulating in weaver districts, claiming 'they are taking your jobs, they laugh at your god in secret."
He set the reports down."Isolated incidents?" he asked.
Sri shook her head."Like a fever starting," she said. "Small hot spots. The language repeats. The insults twist in similar ways, even in different tongues. Someone is… seeding them."
Kaveri, sitting beside Narasimha, studied his face. She had seen him look at war maps, at famine projections, at demon reports. This look—this tightening around his eyes—was different.
"This is what you feared," she said softly. "That when we united the south, they would no longer come with cannons, but with whispers."
Rama Sastry nodded.
"The Constitution gives us tools to punish incitement," he said. "We can arrest preachers who call for violence, regardless of religion. Shut presses that spew hatred. But I fear if we act only with law, they will say, 'See, the state silences our faith.'"
Narasimha stared at the reports.
He imagined the streets described: temple flags, green banners, cattle carts, spice stalls. He imagined men like his own soldiers, but dressed as weavers, butchers, and merchants. Men who prayed differently, yes—yet all of them had, in the end, the same dust on their feet.
He exhaled.
"Law," he said. "Intelligence. And presence."
Rahasya Seva Mandal's head leaned forward.
"We'll task our field cells," he said. "And Trinetra's, quietly. If a British coin is behind this, we will find its glint. If local gundas are stirring trouble for their own gain, we'll pull them into the light."
"And presence?" Kaveri repeated.
Narasimha stood, moving to the wall map.
A small town's name had been circled on the latest reports: Shahipet.
"Sometimes," he said, "a Chakravartin cannot rule from behind scrolls. He must stand in the street dust, between two angry crowds, and let them shout at him instead of at each other—until they remember whose land they stand upon."
Sri frowned."Go yourself?" she asked. "It is dangerous. If one man panics and swings a blade…"
He gave a humourless half-smile."I have faced demons and British cannon," he said. "If I fear my own people's anger more than that, I have no right to wear this crown."
He looked at Rama Sastry and Kaveri.
"Prepare a discreet escort," he said. "Not a parade. Just enough to keep me from being crushed if things turn ugly. I will go to Shahipet."
Kaveri's eyes met his.
"Then go as you always do," she said. "With your royal face… and your foolish heart that insists all of them are yours."
III. Shahipet: Town on Edge
Shahipet was not a grand city.
It was a river town where two trade roads crossed; a place of:
tiled roofs and mud houses,
a small fort from an older dynasty,
one Shiva temple with a fading gopuram,
one modest dargah with a green flag,
a bazaar where different smells tangled: sandalwood, mutton, jaggery, indigo.
For decades, Hindus and Muslims there had quarreled over prices and marriage alliances, not over gods. Processions wound past each other with only occasional grumbles. Friday prayers and festival drums coexisted like monsoon and summer—sometimes clashing, but ultimately part of the same year.
Recently, that rhythm had been broken.
A young maulvi, newly arrived, preached fiercely than the old imam. His words about "true believers" and "dangerous idol-worship" drew some of the young men, especially those nursing private resentments.
In the temple, a new orator, proud of his Sanskrit, wrapped legitimate grievances about taxes and trade with careless jabs at "foreign faiths" and "invaders who forgot they were guests."
Into this, someone began slipping pamphlets.
In Urdu: "They mock your Prophet when you turn your back. They want your daughters unveiled and your mosques silenced."
In Telugu: "They plan to build more mosques, to drown your aarti with their calls. They laugh in foreign tongues that you still cling to your gods."
Most tossed such scraps aside.
But some did not.
Then came the spark.
A local festival's procession—the same route for years, past the dargah lane—went slightly louder than usual. A drumbeat refused to soften. A taunt was shouted. Pot shards flew. A boy was hit by a stone and fell, with blood on his hair. No one later could say who threw first.
By the next morning, Shahipet was split along its main street.
On one side, Hindu youths gathered, armed with sticks, crowbars, whatever they could grab. Their elders stood behind, faces taut, the angriest of them egging the boys on with mutters about honour and insult.
On the other hand, Muslim youths, some with green ribbons on their foreheads, clutched knives, hammers, and heavy sticks. Their elders tried to counsel patience, but rage had its own momentum.
Each side had its own dead or wounded boy to mourn, its own tale of who started it, its own half-heard rumour that the other side was "planning something big."
Spies in Company pay watched from rooftops, veiled behind respectable local names.
"If this blows," one thought, fingers wrapped around a teacup, "the South's unity will crack. The Lion will have to show whether he can rule men's hearts, not just their land."
By the time dust rose at the eastern edge of town—horses approaching—Shahipet's two angry rivers of men were already rushing toward each other, ready to collide.
IV. The Lion in the Dust
Narasimha did not enter Shahipet as a distant emperor in a gilded howdah.
He rode at the front of a small column of mounted Tiger Corps, cloak plain, turban simple, jewellery minimal. On this day, he wanted to look like what he truly was: a man who had walked battlefields and village fields alike.
As they reached the outskirts, they heard it: the roar of voices, the ugly pitch of a crowd that had forgotten it was made of families, not soldiers.
The Tiger Corps captain glanced at him.
"Maharaja(Your Majesty)…" he began.
"Form a loose ring around me when we reach them," Narasimha said. "No drawn swords unless the first one you draw is to stop our own men from panicking. They must see me, not a wall of steel."
They rounded a bend and saw the old banyan tree at the centre of town.
Beneath it, two mobs faced each other—a line of Hindu youths with ash streaks on their brows, sticks and rods raised; a line of Muslim youths with clenched fists and blades tucked into waistbands. Between them lay broken clay pots, an overturned cart, and, obscenely, a girl of about twelve with a bleeding forehead, her mother hunched over her, sobbing.
Narasimha's jaw tightened.
This was worse than the reports.
This was a town seconds away from making a memory it would never be able to undo.
He flung himself from his horse, barely waiting for it to halt.
"Circle," he snapped to his men. "No advance."
Then he walked.
Dust clung to his sandals as he strode straight into the narrow gap between the mobs.
At first, no one noticed; they were too busy bristling at each other.
Then one boy at the front, raising his stick to shout, froze, eyes widening.
"Arre… It's him," he whispered. "The Maharaja. Chakravartin."
The whisper spread like lightning.
"Narasimha Reddy…"
"Kesarinagara's Lion…"
"He came himself?"
The roar dwindled to a tense, crackling silence.
Narasimha stood between them, the banyan's branches framing his silhouette. He took in both sets of faces—the flushed ones of youth, the lined ones of men who should have known better, the fear in the eyes of women pressed against doorways.
He spoke without shouting, but his voice reached the edges of the gathered mass.
"What," he asked, "are you all doing to the mother who carried you?"
The question puzzled them, wrong-footing their prepared slogans.
A stout Hindu shopkeeper found his voice first.
"Maharaja," he said, stabbing a finger toward the other side, "they killed our boy! He was hit in their lane. They threw stones at our goddess's procession. They dishonoured us!"
From the Muslim side, a young man with a green cloth tied around his head shouted back before Narasimha could reply, anger hot in his throat.
"And they march their drums to drown our prayers!" he cried. "They call us invaders, traitors! They smashed our pots! We are not slaves in our own mohalla!"
Murmurs erupted, anger ready to swell again.
Narasimha raised his hand, and something in his stance—centuries of kingship echoing in the blood—made both sides fall grudgingly quiet.
He walked a few paces toward the Muslim side, eyes locking with those of the young man who had spoken.
"You," he said. "What is your name?"
The youth was startled.
"F… Farid, Huzoor," he stammered. "Farid ibn Rahmat Ali."
"Farid," Narasimha said. "Listen carefully, I'm right here." He thumped his chest lightly. "This country is my mother."
He let that sink in.
"You say you are not a slave in your lane. Good. You shouldn't be. But when you throw a stone that hits a little girl—" he pointed at the bleeding child under the banyan "—tell me, are you defending your honour? Or are you spitting on our mother's face?"
Farid opened his mouth, then shut it. His eyes darted to the girl, to her mother, to his own sister watching from a doorway.
Narasimha turned, now facing the Hindu youths.
"And you," he said, "who speak of insult to your goddess. You think she is honoured when you march to burn your neighbour's houses?"
One of the Hindu boys, older than the rest, stepped forward with bravado that barely masked fear.
"They killed our people in one place," he blurted. "So we burnt the Hindus in another place—" He tripped over his own words, confusion briefly crossing his face, then corrected himself angrily. "I mean, they killed our people, so we burnt their shops. You expect us to sit quietly?"
A ripple of agreement moved through some of the Hindu side. On the Muslim side, someone laughed bitterly.
"See? They admit it," a voice called.
Narasimha looked straight at the boy who had spoken.
"Say it properly," he said, softly but with an edge.
"They killed your people there, so you burned theirs here. Yes?"
The boy swallowed and nodded, shoulders tense.
Narasimha did not look away.
"And when they burn yours again tomorrow?" he asked. "What then? You burn ten more? Then they come and burn twenty. You answer with fifty. If we keep killing each other like this, ultimately, no one will be left. The whole place will become a graveyard."
He stepped back, raising his voice.
"Listen to yourselves," he said. "They killed our people there, so we burned theirs here… They, we, we, they. Hey! Think. Soch. When there are no humans left, what can religion do on a grave, man?"
The sentence cracked across the square like a whip.
"When there are no human beings left," he repeated more quietly, "what do you expect your gods to do on a field of stones and skulls? Plant flags on mounds of ash?"
The crowd shifted, uneasy.
V. Faith, Law, and the Girl Under the Banyan
Narasimha moved toward the wounded girl, kneeling briefly at her side. He placed a hand gently near the bandage a local vaid had tied. The mother looked up at him with tear-swollen eyes, torn between awe and despair.
"Maharaja…" she whispered. "She was just bringing back lentils from the shop. A stone came… I don't even know from which side…"
He nodded once, then rose and turned on the crowd like a storm.
"This child," he shouted, "was not carrying a flag. She was not chanting any slogan. She was not in your processions, nor in their prayer line. She was carrying lentils. Now her blood is on this dust. Tell me—whose victory is that?"
No one answered.
He pointed first at the Muslim youths.
"You claim to defend Islam with stones and knives," he said. "Tell me, Farid, Rashid, all of you—what does your faith actually say about women and children? Did your Prophet beat little girls in alleys? Did he throw rocks at their heads?"
Farid's face flushed with shame and stubbornness.
"No…" he muttered. "He… he forbade harm to women and children. He was mercy for the world."
"So which book," Narasimha demanded, "are you following when you lift your hand against mothers and daughters in my realm? Not Qur'an. Not Hadith. Perhaps some British trader's account book?"
A few Muslims snorted at that despite themselves.
He swung to the Hindu side.
"And you," he said. "You shout 'Har Har Mahadev', 'Jai Bhavani' with these sticks in hand. You think Mahadev, who drank poison to save creation, feels honoured when you crack your neighbour's skull because someone whispered an insult in your ear? You think Bhavani, Mother of the universe, is pleased when you terrify mothers at dargah doors?"
A young man with sacred ash on his arms bristled.
"But they insult our gods!" he protested. "They call us idol-worshippers! They say we are kafir!"
Narasimha's eyes were flint.
"True deities do not tremble at the tongues of fools. They watch your conduct," he snapped.
He jabbed a finger toward the temple spire and the dargah dome in quick succession.
"The temple should be in the heart," he said, "and the mosque should be among the people. Even if the religion is different, all human beings are one."
He let the line hang, watching it sink into faces accustomed to hearing scriptures but not always their meaning.
"What use is a mandir that shines while the heart rots with hatred?" he asked. "What use is a masjid full of bowed heads if outside, those heads plan how to bash others?"
He straightened, voice shifting from accusing to resolute.
"I am your king," he said. "Chakravartin of this Mandalic Federation. Under our laws:
No one may use religion to deny another's basic rights,
No one may use caste or creed to justify violence or slavery,
No temple or mosque can claim the street as its private battlefield.
If a priest, pundit, maulvi, or preacher incites violence, we will drag him before the courts and the dharmic commission, strip him of position if needed, no matter his robe or cap."
There were murmurs at that—some approving, some wary.
"Understand this," Narasimha continued. "The Constitution and the Dharmashastra both say: the state must protect:
life,
dignity,
the ability to worship in peace.
Not your ego. Not your desire for revenge."
He looked back at the mother and child.
"If we fail her," he said softly, "we have failed God, by every name."
VI. Dharma, Not Just a Label
The crowd had shifted from explosive to confused, wounded. This was the moment when words could either heal or merely scab over. Narasimha knew it in his bones.
He let his tone warm, drawing from the part of him that had sat with saints and siddhars, not just generals.
"In other lands," he said, "they speak often of religion—a fixed label, a badge, a camp. Do you belong to this, or that? Are you inside their circle, or outside?"
He tapped his own chest.
"In this land, long before we had words like 'Hindu' or 'Muslim' or 'Christian', we had dharma."
He tasted the word as he spoke it, letting its weight carry.
"Dharma is not just ritual," he said. "It is the order that keeps things from falling apart. The duty of rivers to flow, of the sun to rise, of farmers to tend their fields, of kings to protect, of neighbours to stand up when the other is wronged."
He turned to the Hindu elders.
"Sanatana Hindava Dharma," he said with respect, "has lived here for thousands of years. It is not as fragile as some of you behave. If it were, it would have died with the first invader."
He gestured around.
"This land," he said, "never survived by stamping one colour over all others. Think. If this land had crushed every difference, would Jainism have grown here, preaching non-violence so strictly that even roots were not to be disturbed? Would Buddhism have arisen and then travelled from here to other lands? Would Sikhism have arisen in the north, Guru after Guru teaching devotion and bearing arms to protect the weak?"
He raised a hand and began counting softly on his fingers.
"Would Zoroastrians, fleeing Persia when idols of fire were threatened, have found shelter on our western shores, living among us as Parsis without pogrom? Would Jews have lived in coastal towns and in Cochin for centuries without being hunted? Would diverse sects, from Shaivites to Vaishnavas to Shaktas to Lingayats, have survived side by side?"
He spread both hands now, taking in the Muslims too.
"If Sanatana Dharma were just a stick to beat others with," he said, "none of that could have happened. The greatness of this dharma is that it is a vast banyan tree. Many birds nest in it. It loses branches sometimes, it has sap-bleeding scars, yes—but it stretches and shelters."
He turned to the Muslim crowd.
"And you," he said, voice softer, "your ancestors—some came as warriors, some as traders, some as Sufis. Some came with swords, yes. Others came with songs. But you—" he pointed gently at Farid, at an older weaver, at a veiled woman peeking from a window "—you were born here. You drink this river's water. You learned to speak with this soil's tongue. Your children play on this dust. When you die, your bodies will join this earth, whether buried or burned."
He took a step closer.
"Your ancestors may have been invaders," he said, "or kings, or refugees. That is history. But you are children of this land. Not guests. Not trespassers. Children."
Farid's throat worked.
His elder, Rahmat Ali, who had been silent till now, spoke hoarsely.
"Sometimes," the old man said, "when they call us 'foreigners', it burns. We forget… where we stand."
Narasimha nodded.
"And you," he said, turning back to the Hindus, "our ancestors, too, were not always gentle saints. They fought, conquered, and sometimes oppressed. Every community has shadows. Are you determined that your children will be copies of the worst parts of your history? Or do you want them to be better than you?"
He looked from face to face.
"Nothing in this old world truly belongs to any of us," he said, more quietly. "Not temples, not mosques, not crowns, not markets. We are simply custodians. We live for a while. We use the fields, the streets, the shrines. Then we die, and someone else takes our place."
He gestured to the buildings around them, to the river beyond.
"Why fight as if you can drag these stones into the grave?" he asked. "Why tear each other apart over who 'owns' this lane, when in fifty years, none of us will be here to walk it? We are a few beings, allowed to breathe and build for a short time. Our dharma is to leave this place better for the next pilgrims, not drenched in blood."
VII. A Line Drawn in Dust
The anger that had first fueled the mob had burned hot. Now, as he spoke, it began to smoulder and collapse in on itself. In its place came other feelings—embarrassment, grief, confusion, relief.
From the Muslim side, an older man with a hennaed beard stepped forward slowly. He had been well known as a calm trader, dragged today by his nephews "for support."
"They… killed our people in one place," he said, voice low but clear. "So we burned the Hindus in another place. We said we were making things even." His eyes shimmered as he looked at the faces on both sides. "But if we keep killing each other like this, ultimately, no one will be left. The whole town will become a graveyard. Hey, when there are no humans left, what can religion do on a grave, man? think."
The last word—think—came out almost as a plea.
Murmurs spread, softer now.
Narasimha inclined his head deeply to the man.
"That," he said, "is the voice of a man whose heart is still alive."
He turned to the youths again.
"I am not asking you to pretend you feel no pain," he said. "Your boy is dead. Another lies wounded. That grief is real. But grief does not need to be fed with more corpses. Let the law do its work—investigate, punish those who threw the first stone, whoever they are. Let dharma do its work—teach you to break cycles, not necks."
A young Hindu man, shoulders slumping, looked across at someone his own age on the other side—a man he recognized suddenly as the one who had once pulled his little brother out of the river when he was drowning. Awareness flickered in his eyes.
From a balcony, a Jain banker cleared his throat loudly and called down, "My cloth shop will reopen in one hour. I will buy from both of you if you come together. I am not interested in goods dripping with blood."
Some laughter, thin but real, rippled.
The tension loosened another knot.
VIII. Purpose Beyond Rage
As people began to mutter about going back to their shops, to their lunches, to their lives, an old faqir, wrapped in a patched shawl despite the heat, limped forward from the dargah steps. His beard was white, his eyes sharp as flint.
"You spoke well, Raja," he said. "Words like a good hakim's tonic—bitter, but necessary."
He squinted at the youths.
"But tomorrow, when you are gone, these boys will still be here," he went on. "They will wake, eat what little their families can afford, and sit idle at tea stalls. Too much empty time. Too many new rumours. How will you keep them from being dragged again into some cunning man's scheme?"
Narasimha smiled faintly at being challenged.
He bowed to the faqir respectfully.
"Baba," he said, "you have put your finger where it hurts."
He turned to the younger men, letting his voice shift again, now speaking not as emperor, but as an older brother.
"Listen," he said. "If your entire life is only:
wake up,
eat,
gossip,
sleep,
Then any man with a pocket of coins and a shiny slogan can own you."
He thumped his chest lightly again.
"My life," he said, "is not just about waking up, eating, and sleeping. There must be a goal. There must be a purpose. I did not fight the British and write a Constitution so that I could spend my days signing papers only. I do it because I want my children—and yours—to live in a land where they don't have to bow to foreigners or fear their neighbours."
He pointed at the loom district.
"You," he said to the weaver youths, "could make your purpose to weave cloth so fine that people in Istanbul and London fight over it in their markets."
He pointed at the potters.
"You," he told them, "could make your purpose to craft pots that carry water to every poor house within a hundred miles."
He looked at the boys with strong arms, those who had been most eager to fight.
"And you, who feel your blood sing when you hold a stick," he said, "you could train as part of local defence, militia, even the Federation's army. Learn discipline, not just shouting. Let your strength protect, not destroy."
He spread his arms.
"Let your goal be to build Shahipet into a town people speak of with pride," he said, "instead of one they remember as 'that place where they slaughtered each other in 1844.' If your only purpose is to keep score of insults, you will die with nothing achieved, nothing created."
The faqir chuckled softly.
"You sound like the better maulvis and pandits I have heard," he said. "Maybe we should all retire and let you preach."
Narasimha grinned crookedly.
"No, Baba," he said. "Then who will do the paperwork? Even the gods do not want that task."
Some of the tension finally broke into genuine laughter.
IX. Cleaning the Wound
Words could calm, but wounds still needed cleaning.
Before leaving Shahipet, Narasimha set in motion the slower, harder work.
He ordered the local magistrate to set up a special inquiry with equal representation from Hindu and Muslim elders, plus one Jain and one Christian trader, to ensure fairness. The task: identify who had thrown the first stones, who had escalated, who had actually bled.
"Justice," he said, "must be blind to religion, but not to facts."
Rahasya Seva Mandal agents moved quietly, collecting testimonies, tracing pamphlets. Trinetra, from even deeper shadows, followed money trails.
By week's end, they uncovered: a "donation" to the fiery young maulvi from a trader linked to a Calcutta firm whose ledgers smelled strangely of Company influence, funds sent to a pamphlet press owned by a man with unexplained recent riches and frequent travel to British-held ports, Whisper campaigns run by two local toughs who suddenly had coins far above their station.
The maulvi was arrested, not for his faith, but for inciting violence and accepting foreign funds to destabilise the Federation. The temple orator, whose careless speech had also poured ghee on flames, was censured, made to publicly apologise, and temporarily barred from holding discourses while he underwent a dharmic ethics course under both a respected acharya and, to his surprise, a Sufi elder.
The two local gang leaders found themselves in prison, their properties partially seized to fund medical care for the injured and repairs for damaged shops.
In Kesarinagara, Rama Sastry ensured that new guidelines went out to district officers:
to monitor sudden, unnatural sharpening of religious sermons,
to provide more forums where grievances could be aired before they festered,
to coordinate with the Department of Culture and the Spirit Interaction Office when tension gathered around sacred sites.
Narasimha, reading the follow-up reports, felt some of the heaviness in his chest ease.
It had not become a massacre.
It had come close. But it had not.
He knew this was not the last time such tensions would flare. Kaliyuga had a talent for recycling human folly. But now, Shahipet had become a lesson written in living flesh instead of ink.
X. Gods Who Watch Men Think
That night, as lamps flickered across the Mandalic Federation—some in temples, some in mosques, some in homes where people, exhausted by anger, fell asleep—the higher realm watched.
The six who had made the soul at the centre of these events sat together.
On a kind of starry terrace beyond form, Parvati watched an image of the banyan square, replaying the moment Narasimha had shouted, "When there are no human beings left, what can a religion do on a grave, man?"
She smiled sadly.
"Look at him," she said. "Standing between two mobs, hands empty. No weapon but his tongue and his heart."
Mahadev's eyes were half-closed, but a small smile touched his lips.
"He has finally begun to understand," he said, "that the hardest battles are not against demons or foreign soldiers, but against the madness that overtakes one's own people."
Lakshmi's gaze lingered on the wounded girl, now sleeping peacefully with a bandage over her brow.
"He remembered," she said, "to ask the right question: not 'Who is right?' first, but 'Who is bleeding?' That is closer to true dharma than all the shouted slogans."
Saraswati, ever the lover of words, seemed pleased.
"He spoke of Sanatana Dharma as shelter, not as weapon," she murmured. "He named Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism… and remembered that our land's greatness is not in its ability to destroy difference, but to host it."
Brahma stroked his beard.
"The British tried to poke at old fault lines," he said. "A clever move by limited minds. But they forget that a civilisation rooted in dharma does not fracture so easily when someone still remembers to think—soch—before killing."
Vishnu's eyes twinkled.
"Today," he said, "our child chose to speak like a Krishna at Kurukshetra, not just to fight like a Bhima in battle. He reminded them that they are custodians, not owners. That everything they cling to will one day slip from their hands. Good."
He glanced sideways, teasing lightly.
"And," he added, "I admit, that line—'Mister, we aren't begging. I'm right here, this country is my mother'—had style."
Parvati chuckled.
"He is yours and mine both in that," she said. "Stubborn and theatrical."
Mahadev looked once more at Narasimha, now back in Kesarinagara, sitting alone under another tree, rubbing his face with tired hands before Kaveri came to sit beside him.
"Today," Shiva said, "he poured water on a small fire. Tomorrow, other fires will come. That is Kaliyuga's nature. We cannot promise him an easy path."
Saraswati's voice softened.
"No," she said. "But we can be witnesses when he chooses rightly."
Lakshmi nodded.
"And we can hope," she said, "that when other heroes appear—men in armour, men in capes, women drawing circles of light—they will remember stories like this. That there was once a Lion in the south who stood in the dust and refused to let his people turn a street into a graveyard."
Far below, in Shahipet, two boys—one Hindu, one Muslim—lay awake in their separate homes, staring at the night roof.
Both found themselves remembering the same words:
"When there are no humans left, what can religion do on a grave?"
In the days to come, they would cross paths in the bazaar.
Perhaps they would still argue over money. Perhaps over whose team was better at kabaddi.
But when someone muttered about "those people", each would hear the echo of a king's voice and, for a moment, think before throwing a stone.
Sometimes, in Kaliyuga, that was how dharma survived:
Not in perfect saints,
but in flawed men who, on one important day, chose to think before they killed.
✦ End of Chapter 55 – "The Fire in Men's Hearts" ✦