In 2016 I had the pleasure of watching the most beautiful bharatnatyam performance choreographed and conceptualized by my guru Jyotsna Shourie. This story was inspired by her show which explored the rise and fall of the Devadasi tradition. This story is dedicated to her… 

There’s a river in the south where the water roils against the silty banks of Thanjavur and the smooth pebbles at the bottom are sun-dappled and stained with color. They call this river the Venaaru river because of the color of the water. It is not stained the blue of a royal peacock’s wing, nor the mucky green of the Kaveri. No, the water here is so clear the people who cross it, call it white. The waves are tipped with ivory foam, the lull and swish of froth at the banks is pristine, and the large expanse of river itself is crystal clear. So clear that one can see all the way to the glowing, milky sand at the bottom where bright orange fish frolic. It is on the banks of this river that lies the temple in which Leelanoor once danced.

The temple has been empty for over two centuries. The marble walls once inlaid with jewels have been ransacked by robbers, the large brass bell at the entrance has rusted in place and the insides are covered in a layer of dust so thick that even the summer storms will not dislodge the fine particles from where they have taken root. More often than not this side of the Venaaru is cloaked in heavy silence, the only rare sight is the boatmen who come sailing down the rolling waves to sell their wares in the great cities beyond.

It is Badri who tells me the story. He sails down the Venaaru in a boat made entirely of wood, with a sail made of his mother’s old sari. The Kanjivaram glows gold and rose against the early morning sky, where one of those rare summer storms is brewing. His clay pots built with such precision and etched with the loveliest carvings of shadowy figures contorted in ancient poses, dancing across the expanse of glazed mud that forms the rotund matkas and vessels, tremble slightly in the wind.

‘This wind would rouse a story from my father.’ Badri tells me. ‘He too was named Badri as all of the sons in our family have been named. Potters all of them. He would tell me the story of our mutataiyar, our ancestor, Badri, and the devadasi Leelanoor. They say that when the summer roars and rips through the clouds in a flurry of passion the wind that touches the Venaaru would remember her name and sing it.’

Leelanoor. The breeze cries, like a lover who has sinned. Lamenting and wailing, and in tandem, the Venaaru dances to its tune.

Leelanoor. Leelanoor. Leelanoor.

***

She was born to a summer storm. On the eve of it her mother convulsed, and it was in the throes of labor when the wind hammered at the simple mud walls of the hut, that she was born, sliding out into the waiting arms of her father. He kissed her blood-smeared forehead, anointing his lips with the thick of it and when her skin had been cleaned, he saw the mark that was hidden in the crease of her skin. A scar that sat shaped like a star in between both her brows. He believed it to be a blessing, from the Great Nataraja himself, the destroyer, divine lord of dance, who also had a third eye in the center of his forehead.

‘Leelanoor.’ He whispered to the child, and his voice carried, into the arms of the storm and sailed away on the wind.

‘This is not the name one gives to a mere blacksmith’s daughter.’ Her mother chided. “That is a name that belongs to a princess.”

But she was to be greater than a mere princess, her father decided. She was to become the wife of a God. Word spread quickly in the village. A devadasi had been born in the confines of their humble home. She would be wed to the God of the great temple across the Venaaru. She was to be the wife of the Great Nataraja, to stand as his partner, his third eye imbued in her forehead. A grand puja was held in honor of her birth, so great were the flames of it that the smoke clouded the sky for a month after. And with it her name was whispered in quiet reverence, straddled on the tongue of the villagers like a prayer along with the rumors. They claimed the blacksmith had plucked her from the cleft of soil between the roots of the jasmine trees. They claimed that a baby so beautiful had been conceived because her mother had drunk only honey during her pregnancy, till her blood ran sweet infusing the fetus with it, a single taste of her flesh would be live overripe fruit. That the devadasis across the way had carved her form in fresh beeswax, still soft to the touch, and snuck it onto the pyre in prayer at the moment she was conceived.

Time seemed to ebb like the tide of the river. Fleeting and ephemeral. And with it, Leelanoor grew. She was flawless save for that divine scar between her eyes. Eyes like the deer that roamed the lush forests, skin smooth like fresh cream, slender as the reeds that grew wild across the fertile land on which her ancestors farmed. Her mother would rub her skin with dried turmeric until her skin shone like gold and as the moon rose iridescent alongside the twinkling stars, they would cover her in rich soil until she was but another dark figment of the night.

Nourished on a fine diet of lullabies and legend, she grew to know only one thing. The temple that would soon become her home and the Gods for whom she would dance. Covered in the rich dark mud, carried home from the banks of the Venaaru by her father every day, Leelanoor would hide in the pantry and gorge herself on makhan, fancying herself the blue-skinned cow-heard who loved butter. When daylight struck the stone floors of the kitchen, her mother would see the empty pot of butter lying discarded, stained with muddy fingerprints and dainty vermilion footprints. She would sit cross-legged at the banks of the Venaaru for hours her body sinking into the silt, pretending to play the holy Parvati praying for a child until her father carried her home. She would jump from tree to tree, imagining herself slaying great demons as the Goddess Kali, her long hair floating to her waist, in a silky ebony curtain smelling of the fragrant champa and the sweet jasmine.

Soon she was sailed across the Venaaru, holding onto her father’s hand, the summer wind scented with the ripe wild mangoes. Her long hair was braided with the same flowers she had once made merry in, her body dripping in gold, draped in the crimson kanjeevaram sari saved for brides. They covered her in sandalwood paste and bathed her with rosewater until she smelt like a newly blossoming flower. And when they approached the great temple with gold spires raised to the sky like

birds in prayer, everything seemed to sing her name. The songbirds nesting on the trees, the rustling weeds growing deep in the fertile soil of the riverbank and even the water of the Vennaru whispered it with every lull and thrum of the waves. Leelanoor, they sing in welcome. Leelanoor. Leelanoor. Leelanoor.

The lanterns were lit and in the middle of the great marble temple a fire burnt hot and bright, and seated next to it was a statue of the Great Nataraja along with the priest. It was a great ebony statue, the God glowered down at the agni, his features carved with stark and harsh beauty. He had a single leg raised in effortless poise, the carved bells tied around his ankle so lifelike, Leelanoor was sure she could hear them tinkling alongside the chanting of the priest. His hands were raised in the traditional pose of the Nataraja, an arm crossed over, drooping in grace, the other held rigidly upright above, palm facing out ready to bless all who knelt at its feet. When she looked upon it, for a single moment Leelanoor was afraid. There would be no more stealing of butter, no more running amok through the champa trees. She was the wife of a God now, she was devoted to this temple, she was to learn to be a devadasi.

As she took her place near the Nataraja, the priest poured more fragrant oil into the pyre and there was a faint sizzle as it burnt. As he chanted out rituals, the other devadasis peeked out to see the new sister wife they had acquired. Some turned green with envy, others doted on the young child, while others lauded her as beautiful as the Goddesses above. The blacksmith waited for the ceremony to end as the vermillion powder was scraped through the part of her midnight hair and the gold mangalsutra tied around her neck, a single ruby in the middle of the black beads. The marriage was finalized with a collective ‘Swaha’ from the group and the deed was done.

That night, as Leelanoor watched her father sail away from the temple to the other side of the Venaaru, pearl like tears trickling down her face, she was enveloped in the arms of the oldest Devadasi at the temple, who everyone simply called Akka. ‘The devadasi is the eternal form of divine mortality.’ She told the trembling child. ‘You must curb your five senses and feel only the divinity that has been bestowed upon you. Food is but ash in your mouth, the perfumes of the world but common breeze, the only sound you can hear will be the clang of the nattavangam that will take you to the same plane as your beloved. Everything but the sight of you God is naught but to be borne, and your touch is to be saved only for the divine lord and your sisters. It is the greatest form of Bhakti.’

But though Leelanoor nodded, her mind had already wandered, redolent as she remembered the pots of golden butter that bore the imprint of her mother’s palms, the sound of her father’s laughter as he swung her home from the river, the feel of the jasmine scented summer winds that flew home alongside her like wings at her feet. She had been raised with the Gods and still her heart pulled in the direction of the river across which lay her village. To curb all five senses would be like forgetting them, the walls in which she has grown. And so often Akka found her curled around a pot of makhan in the mornings, gold oily splatters on her cheeks and fingers. When the time to dance came she found her swimming in the roiling Venaaru, her curls sodden and sandy. It took much to curb her, much to turn her into the revered Devadasi she was meant to be.

Here Badri stops, so engrossed am I in his story I hardly notice where we were rowing until the boat stills against the banks with a lurch and creak. He grabs a pot, it has been burnished in great flames from the tell tale red color of it. He points to the thin delicate carvings on it and I see then the figure of a young girl first, her hand dipped into a vessel the other enveloped in the confines of a bee-stung mouth. He keeps turning the matka so I might examine the carvings, so tiny and yet so detailed it is but a work of art. She grows with every frame, playing in the river, her hair is braided, and she is adorned with jewels, she stands in the pose of the Nataraja, incorrect at first but then her stance becomes more assured and soon we reach the end where we see only her back. Her sari pulled taut against her slender frame, jasmine flowers encircle her hair, she holds a thaal with a single deeya and her hand is raised so she might ring the big brass bell that hangs at the temple entrance. When we alight the boat I am greeted by the haunting sight of the empty temple.

“Come.” Badri beckons, filling the same pot with water from the Venaaru.

***

‘It was no easy task to tame Leelanoor. Disobedience to the tradition ran in her veins, but as she grew older, the lilting music of old became a siren song. The lullabies her mother sang to her were now melodies to which she might dance. She could practice the worship of the Gods in this great cosmic release sowed with the force of her footfalls as she danced. Often while she was taught, she would forget the great ebony statue of the Nataraja watching her and simply be one with the music. Thus, as time passed, slowly this time, Leelanoor grew into the greatest devadasi the villagers heard of. They had not seen her since she left ten years past, they had not witnessed her dance when they visited the temple to worship, but they heard her name whispered between the temple walls, at first in frustration then in pride and reverence. And soon the winds who remembered her name once whispered to them in the midst of a storm, caught hold of it and cradled it close carrying it far and wide across the south.’ Badri says as we wend through overgrown weeds and mushy soil to reach the temple in the distance.

Leelanoor. The winds croon in time with her dancing footsteps. Leelanoor. Leelanoor. Leelanoor.

***

The morning she was revealed to temple goers the sun was a sliver of rose in the cloud-ridden sky. She stood at the door of the temple, her sari the same blue as the skin of the Maakhanchor and waited for the throng of people who came to worship at the aarti. Akka had told her to stand there, toe crossed daintily across her body, hip jutting out the thaal balanced carefully on one hand so she might lead the reverent to prayer when the time came. But no one knew Leelanoor waited, hoping to catch a long-desired glimpse of her mother and father. While the crowd gathered, she waited and waited until the priest signaled for the aarti to begin. They say that when she broke from the shadows, her disappointment well hidden, her hips lilting, waiting to lead the crowd into the temple, it was then that Badri saw her. She struck the great brass bell with a single hand above her head, the thaal held precariously at her side on a single upturned palm. Over and over the bell rang, loud sonorous clangs to awaken the deities within. And when her hand touched the brass, with such precision and such grace, the clouds cleared and she was sheathed in the rays of the glowing gold sun. And Badri, his chest bare and wiry, his arms strong with carving and creating great round pots, saw just the movement of her wrist and found himself smitten. He could only imagine the girl cloaked in shadows, the graceful bones of her hand, beating the great bell, were caught in his mind, and soon enough the pots he carved were nothing but hands and shadows. They collected flowers, intertwined fingers, played the melodious veena on his vessels, and much were they lauded for the brilliant artistry, but only Badri and his father before him saw it. That they were the same hands, committed to memory in a single moment that had turned infinite, carved over and over again on waxy, wet mud.

But Badri was not satiated, he longed to see more than a hand. Caged in a penitentiary of desires, he began to dream. He dreamt of the strands of hair, thicker than the feathers of a ravens wings and still delicate enough to be wound around one’s wrist in a caress. He dreamt of the pale red indentations on the back where the sari’s pallu tied tightly would chafe against soft skin. He dreamt of the column of necks, the fragrance of summer roses, thick, fat and drooping with the weight of perfume, the curve of the waist, the dark drowning in the eyes, the swell of the hips and the smile stretched across the lips. He dreamt himself into madness, his hands that carved so meticulously itched and trembled with the desire to carve more than just random patterns and meaningless nothings.

Bred on the devadasi tradition, his mind unable to find comfort even in the recesses of his dreams, where a hand would reach to stroke his cheek and wipe sweat from his brow, he decided to create Leelanoor for himself. He rolled out of his bed on a midsummer night, slung his tools across his back and rowed the great wooden boat across the Venaaru so that he might collect soft silty clay from the banks of the river. Some distance away from the temple he began to mould the wet clay. He kneaded it tirelessly until no air bubbles could cause holes in the surface of the finished product, so fierce were his movements that sweat dripped from his muscular body despite the cooling gaze of the stars above. It took hours, and when the sun began its ascent into the sky, Badri had created the appendage that had haunted him, the single curve of the hand raised to ring the temple bell. Covered in the wet clay, he fell asleep next to the small mound of mud that was to become the rest of Leelanoor.

Leelanoor had begun to perform at the temple. Her life was dedicated to dancing, her tongue had long since forgotten the soft slide of butter and she rarely ventured out of the walls of her temples. Her feet and hands were permanently stained red from the constant application of aalta and she had forgotten what it meant to move in silence for the constant tinkling of bells at her feet. The days began to blur together, it began with the aarti and then the dancing began. The steadfast alaripu taking place in three beats. Tak e Ta. Tak e Ta. Tak e Ta. The swarajathi in seven. Tak e Ta Tak a Dhi Mi. Tak e Ta Tak a Dhi Mi. Tak e Ta Tak a Dhi Mi. And then Leelanoor had some semblance of freedom. On days when she felt bored, she played the great Devi Ma who borrowed the trident from Nataraja to vanquish demons. Some days she played the ever-gentle, ever-generous Annapurna. But most often than not her role was to play Parvati, divine consort to the Nataraja, for she was the equivalent upon the mortal lands. Years had passed but Leelanoor had just begun to be immersed in the devadasi tradition. She saw nothing but the four walls of the temple in which the divine was housed, she tasted the bare food with little interest, heard only the constant clang of the nattavangam as she dance, smelt only the pungent incense left at the feet of the Nataraja each morning and remained celibate, having never touched another in the ten years since Akka inducted her.

But even within the safe arms of the temple, her mind would remember the home she had once known across the Venaaru, whose residents still flocked the temple, but whose faces, so blurred in the crevices of memory, so deeply hidden, she no longer recalled. Often, she wondered if she would recognize the lost smile of her mother, the one she thought might look like the crescent moon, or the wrinkled brown skin of her father. Her frustration at the loss of these memories grew with each passing day, gnawing at her skin, like an itch she couldn’t scratch driving her mad. So, on the night where no moon shone in the sky and the iridescence of the stars were dimmed, Leelanoor stepped from the threshold of the temple, her sari the same bright pink and gold she had once worn as a child.

It seemed like eons since she had taken a breath free from the pungent incense that was lit at the temple. She could smell the soft, wet mud that squelched under her toes and the fresh jasmine that was just beginning to blossom. She could hear the gentle lull of the Venaaru and for a single fleeting second, she forgot that she was the revered devadasi of the Temple by the way. For that one second she was just Leelanoor. The Leelanoor, the ferns sang for, the Leelanoor that the summer storms remember with every heave and puff of air. It was in that moment, walking as she was by the Venaaru, that she found Badri.

His eyes were closed, and he squatted down between the reeds facing away from her. She didn’t even see him to begin with. She saw first, the large statues that formed a half circle around him. From the distance they seemed like great hulking pillars of mud the size of a great man. But as she neared him, Leelanoor noticed the carvings, and the delicate moulding of the clay. They were women.

She began to run, nearing the statue and it was the sound of the mud beneath her powerful footsteps that awakened Badri from his dreamworld, one where he saw more apparitions of the woman who he carved over and over. The first statue was simple, a devadasi ringing the temple bell. Leelanoor skimmed her palms across the cool expanse of mud, that had hardened under the rays of the sweltering sun. Her eyes latched onto the next, a woman her knee placed on the silty banks below, her hands thrown out and towards the sky, her eyes lifted with helpless wonder. Every pleat of the sari had been cut into the mud with careful precision, the soft down on the woman’s arms, the bangles that rested on the delicate bones of the wrist. But it was when Leelanoor’s gaze drifted to the sculpture’s face that her breath snagged in her chest. The features so similar to her own, her fingers reached out to touch the still-drying claying.

But Badri had arisen from his squat on the floor. He stopped her with a strangled cry unable to see the smudge of her fingerprints on the sculpture. Even if it was fingerprints from the same hand that had filled his dreams. And when she turned to see him Badri saw the sea of fast-fading stars, shaken out into the eyes of the woman in front of him. He almost fell to his knees at the sight of her. And even before she could tell him, the storm, enamored by the lovers swirled around him, whispering her name.

Leelanoor. Leelanoor. Leelanoor, the storm crooned in Badri’s ear as he begins to explain himself to the woman in front of him.

It began with a touch of their hands. As she saw the sculptor, Leelanoor laughed like the young girl she truly remained at heart. ‘You’ve created us devadasis?’ she asked him. Badri was incapable of words as she mimicked his sculptures. She pretended to ring the temple bell, looked up at the skies in wonder, lifter her leg in the traditional pose of the Nataraja. Unused to the uneven floor outside the temple, Leelanoor stumbled. Badri reached out to right her and their fingers clasped together.

In a single moment, their lives were altered. Leelanoor who had never been touched by another human in her years since she entered the temple, found herself marveling at the feel of Badri’s hand in her own. His hand was so strong yet gentle, the skin calloused and rough compared to her own soft pelt, the feel of wet clay drying in patches made his skin rough to touch. And Badri could not fathom the hand that had near driven him to madness in his own. And so, they stared as their fingers entwined, enamored and enthralled.

What is touch but a revelation? That overtly visible space where our secrets sink into the lines of our skin. What is touch but that seductive slide of flesh against flesh, where skin meets its own likeness in another person? And yet it is different. Leelanoor’s skin was like soft cream, her fingers sliding against Badri’s the way butter used to stick slick against her little fingers as she indulged in the golden treat. And Badri’s fingers? So rough and callused from constantly working with the clay and the sharp tools used to shape it, discolored from time spent in the sun. What a revelation it was to be touched. Leelanoor wondered what stories Badri’s hands had created. She imagined the slender waist of the milkmaids as they flirted with the blue-skinned God, she imagined the carved flames of holy fire on pots and pans, like the ones from which divine apsaras appeared to give boons, she imagined demons and angels and dancers coming to life between the fingers of Badri, where clay still dried. Would he ink their story on a vase, our would he carve it on the dried clay that stuck to his body, Leelanoor wondered. And wonder was a very dangerous thing for girls who are ordained for one sort of life. One day. Over and over and over.

It began then, the winds were roused from their slumber. Each morning from when the stars still twinkled in the insipid sky and until the sun rose painting the great expanse the color of saffron tea and crushed rose petals mixed in milk, Leelanoor snuck out from the safety of the temple and rushed to the same spot where she first met Badri. There they would sit under the shade of his large sculptures sucking on sweet honeysuckle blossoms and drinking cool fresh water from the Venaaru itself. At first, with the gentle summer breeze mussing her oiled hair, Leelanoor would pose for him and Badri would sculpt. She would pretend to the raasleela of the Gopi’s of Vrindavan, played the giant bird who tried to rescue Sita as she was abducted, she would curl her moustache like the devious Shakuni as he gambled the Pandava King into unaffordable debt.

But soon sculpting turned into clandestine whispers and whispers blossomed into conversation, until every night, Leelanoor snuck out to lie on the silty banks of the Venaaru with Badri. They talked and talked and talked until their voices were hoarse and even the nectar of the honeysuckle couldn’t soothe it. And while Badri had known it for quite some time, the summer winds that rushed her to and from the temple had begun to whisper sweet nothings to Leelanoor. And she feared that the love she was supposed to feel, for the God she had been married to, was naught but frightful deception. For if this feeling, this contentment, this pleasure, this happiness was not love, then she decided she didn’t want it at all.

And as she fell into the thick of it, her dancing changed. It went from the simple telling of stories to living them. And while the temple goers were in awe at this divine display of passion from the most beloved devadasi. Across the way the villagers held their head in pride at the sound of her name. They would croon of how they saw her as a child, playing in the trees, when people asked if they had seen Leelanoor dance in the temple. And while everyone saw her as the divine mortal consort of the Nataraja, the other devadasi’s suspected that something had changed.

Badri and I had walked some way from the river, the temple still silent and dark a few meters behind us. And hidden by the tall reeds which were flocked by tiny fruit flies that buzzed around our heads, were the most exquisite statues I had seen. Baked in the sun they were the red of sandstone, and so lifelike that I had almost been scared that they were real. The same woman carved over and over again, a grove of them in different statues. The same ones Badri mentioned in his story. At first, they lacked some detail but as we proceeded through the grove of statues, I saw Leelanoor as Badri had described her. With the mogra around her hair and her scar in between her brows.

Badri stopped in front of the oldest statue once we had seen all of them. He lifted the pot on which he had carved the growth of Leelanoor and poured a steady stream of water from the Venaaru atop the statue. My breath caught as I imagined her coming to life in front of me, the devadasi who even the summer storms were enamored with. But Badri only laughed me off, he picked up his pot and rubbed the wet mud at the feet of the statue onto his fingers before anointing his forehead. “Come.” He beckons. “I must finish this tale and get to the market to sell the pots, before the storm hits.”

So, we continued on, the winds growing louder, swirling the reeds around us and slapping the water of the Venaaru against the banks noisily. Leelanoor the waves wail. Leelanoor. Leelanoor. Leelanoor.

The story doesn’t have a very happy end. For as the suspicions in the temple rose so did sordid deeds. Akka woke one night, when the stars still gleamed, in the sky, like the diamonds they wore on their long necks while they danced. She rose and as the winds whistled to hide the tinkling bells of Leelanoor’s anklets Akka’s doubts grew. She waited in the shadows until she saw Leelanoor leave and her misgivings turned to sorrow at this betrayal. For while she believed Leelanoor to be an infidel, it was the betrayal to her sisters that pinched more. It stung, that Leelanoor would do this to them. The disgrace to the temple if she were ever found, would be catastrophic. And when she saw Leelanoor sink into the silt beside Badri, her braid coated in mud, when she saw them laugh and whisper and watched her pose so he might sculpt her, she was filled with thee deepest sorrow for what was to follow. She didn’t sneak and she didn’t hide. When she found them, she was illuminated by the light of the moon and stars as they watched their favorite lovers be forsaken.

It was Akka’s silence that scared Leelanoor. She stammered and stumbled trying to explain and still Akka remained quiet. She couldn’t fathom the sight. Her beloved sister, her Leelanoor, who she had raised in her arms, who she had taught to dance – sitting with a man. A mere sculptor, when she had been gifted to the divine, a Lord of the heavens. But still Leelanoor did not look ashamed. She did not look guilty. She only looked fearful at having been caught. Her head was held high as tears filled in her eye, the salt of them spilling onto her skin. For the first time in days the summer winds went silent, wanting to hear what happened next.

Akka’s voice shook as she disowned the girl. Her fingers trembled, aching to shake her, but she couldn’t fathom her blessed fingers touching Leelanoor. She who had soiled her very mortal divinity by even indulging the sculptor.

Badri handed me his palm to help me alight his wooden boat. The silk sail rustled noisily as the winds grew noisier. I couldn’t help but ask him to continue. Enthralled.

‘Did they abandon the temple because of her deeds?’

But Badri simply shook his head.

“When she left them, no one knew she had gone. She disappeared in the silence of the night, her footsteps etched on Badri’s grove of wet clay. The sculptor followed her silently. Only the summer winds that stalked her must know what happened to them. Whether they married, whether they had children, whether we are the descendants of that union from hundreds of years ago, no one knows.”

I stare at him my mouth agape. “That can’t possibly be the end.” I say. “If you don’t know what happened how have your ancestors passed down the story?” I ask as he begins rowing, standing at the prow of the boat.

But Badri looks nonplussed. “I know that they were in love. And I know that in the absence of Leelanoor no one found joy in the temple and its performances. They flocked to new temples in search of where she might have gone dancing. And the temple across the Venaaru became dark and obsolete until even the remaining devadasi’s found new homes. My father used to say that Badri never experienced a marriage with Leelanoor but he lived on the perfume of their love. The fragrance of her, the sound of her laughter, the twinkle in her eyes, the way she moved. He carved his life through her movements and through her body until she ceased to exist. It was like one part of his life ended when she did. And so he kept her alive in his grove of sculptures and in his stories.”

“You’re talking in riddles.” I tell him.
“What are stories but riddles?” he says, righting the pink silk kanjeevaram.
“How did your father hear the story then.”
“From his father before him.”
I scoff. “How did your ancestors hear it?” I ask as a slight drizzle breaks out.
Badri grins. “A summer storm whispered it in their ear when they slid from the womb.” And as he smiles and rows through the storm across the roiling, frothy white waves of the water, sailing through Thanjavur, I hear it. In the pitter-patter of droplets and in the howl of the wind I hear it.

Leelanoor. The storm whispers to me. Leelanoor. Leelanoor. Leelanoor.