After bathing the dry, withered body of Bhagirathi, dressing her in a clean sari, and completing the rituals of worship and offering as prescribed, adorning her hair with the sacred flowers of prasada, giving her tirtha, touching her feet to receive her blessings, Praneshacharya brought the bowl of rava porridge.

“Let your meal be first,” Bhagirathi said in a faint voice.

“No. Let your gruel be first,” he replied.

For twenty years, this exchange had become a ritual between them. The morning bath, the sandhyavandana, cooking, giving medicine to his wife, then crossing the river to perform puja to the temple’s Maruti—these were the unbroken observances. After the meal, the Brahmins of the agrahara would come one by one to his doorstep—to listen to the recitation of the puranas and tales of virtue that had become dear to him day by day. In the evening, again the bath, sandhyavandana, gruel for his wife, medicine, cooking, supper—then, returning to the veranda, the discourse to the Brahmins gathered there.

Now and then, Bhagirathi would say:

“What happiness have you found by tying yourself to me? Doesn’t the house need a child? Marry again.”

“A man as old as I am, to marry again…” Praneshacharya would laugh.

“You haven’t even crossed forty. Which father would not be glad to give his daughter in marriage to one who has studied Sanskrit in Kashi and returned? The house needs a child. Since you took my hand, have you known happiness…?”

Praneshacharya would smile shyly, and as he tried to rise and sit—

Samskara

He is told: Put your wife to bed, let her sleep. Did not the Lord say, perform your duties without desire for the fruits? It is only to test those on the path of liberation that He grants them birth as Brahmins and entangles them in such worldly affairs. The blessed feeling, as sweet as the taste of panchamrita, is followed by repentance that falls upon his wife, and because she is ill, he feels he has grown even more gentle, and takes pride in his own restraint.

Before sitting down to eat, he lifts a handful of grass onto a plantain leaf and places it before Gauri, who is grazing in the backyard. He strokes the cow’s bristling, sacred body, presses his eyes to it, and as he steps inside, he hears a woman’s voice calling, “Acharya, Acharya!” Listening closely, it seems to be Chandri, Narayanappa’s concubine. If he speaks to her, he will have to bathe again before he can eat. But if a woman is left waiting in the courtyard, is it possible for a morsel to pass one’s throat?

He goes to the veranda. Chandri stands there, her sari drawn tightly over her head, pale and stricken with fear.

“What brings you here, child?”

“He… he…”

Chandri, trembling, leans against the pillar, unable to speak.

“Who? Narayanappa? What has happened?”

“He is gone…”

Chandri covers her face.

“Narayana, Narayana—when?”

“Just now…”

“Narayana—what happened?”

Chandri, sobbing, manages to say: