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:

“After returning from Shimoga, he was struck with fever and took to his bed. Four days of fever—nothing more… There was a swelling near his ribs, like a well rising with pain…”

Samskara

“Narayana.”

Praneshacharya, still in his eating clothes, hurried across the agrahara and rushed into Garudacharya’s house, calling out, “Garuda, Garuda!” as he entered the kitchen. Narayanappa was related to Garudacharya through five generations. Narayanappa’s great-grandfather’s grandmother and Garudacharya’s great-grandfather’s grandmother were sisters. Just as Garudacharya was about to lift a morsel of mixed saaru to his mouth—

“Narayana… Garuda, don’t eat. Narayanappa is gone.”

Wiping the sweat off his face, glistening in the midday heat, Praneshacharya delivered the news.

Garudacharya was stunned. Even though he and Narayanappa had, by oath, severed all ties, he left the morsel on the leaf where it was, washed his hands, and stood up. Turning to his wife, Sitadevi, who stood frozen, clutching her sari tightly, he said, “Let the children eat, it doesn’t matter for them. Until the funeral rites are done, we cannot eat.” And he left with Praneshacharya.

Fearing that someone nearby might eat before hearing the news, Praneshacharya hurried to Udupi Lakshmanacharya’s house, while Garudacharya, still dazed, ran to Lakshmi Devamma’s and then to the house of Durgabhatta of the lower street, spreading the word as he went. Like wildfire, the news spread to the remaining ten houses of the agrahara. Children were gathered inside, doors and windows shut tight. By the grace of the gods, not a single Brahmin had eaten yet.

Though not a single woman or child in the agrahara felt any grief at the news of Narayanappa’s death, an unspoken, unfamiliar fear and anxiety took root in every heart. Udupi Lakshmanacharya, cursing his fate for having such an enemy in life, a thorn in death, and now a corpse that had become a problem, washed his hands. Every man who set out to gather in the Acharya’s verandah heard his wife whisper in his ear: “Pranesh—”

Samskara

“Do not agree to perform his funeral rites unless the Acharya himself decides. What will happen if the Guru declares an excommunication tomorrow?”

In the same manner as when they would crowd together to listen to the Purana—yet today, in an unspoken anxiety—the Brahmins gathered in the verandah, and Praneshacharya, circling the tulsi plant with his rosary, spoke as if posing a question to himself:

“Naranappa’s funeral rites must be performed: that is the first question. He has no children—someone must perform his obsequies: that is the second question.”

Chandri, who stood by the pillar in the courtyard, waited anxiously to hear what the Brahmins would say to this. Unable to contain her curiosity, she came from the backyard door. The women, who stood in the midst of the gathering, watched Praneshacharya, worried about what rash thing their husbands might do.

To everything the Acharya said, Garudacharya, rubbing his thick, black arms in his usual way, replied, “Yes, yes, that’s right, that’s right.”

“No one is to