The mahurat for the temple inauguration is at six in the evening. That is the time when the idol of Lord Ram will be ritually installed. Only a few select guests have been invited. Once the inauguration is over, the entire town will come for the celebratory dinner. Dr Bhaskar’s local guru, Swami Satyanand, will chair the occasion and his senior devotees will look after the general organization. The earlier idea of asking a Warli to inaugurate the temple has slipped off the agenda at some point between the lips and the will.

It is four o’clock when the Mahalakshmi Hill looms up before them. In gut reaction, Anima hears the monotone of the tarpa, sees young men and women dancing, half in a trance, to its accompaniment. The coloured clips and ribbons in the young girls’ hair and the sweat trickling down the midriff, bare between choli and tightly wound half-sari, gleam under the moonlight.

‘I must have been around nine,’ she says to Janaki, ‘when I pestered Anna to let me come to the fair with Rama. Remember, Ashesh? I sat on Rama’s shoulders to see the dancing. Ai was livid. “They drink all night. How did you trust Rama? He’s as much of a Warli as the others.” “I trust Rama more than I would trust my brother if I had one,” Anna replied quietly. Ai didn’t speak to Anna and me for four days afterwards.’

‘Why do the Warlis worship Mahalakshmi? They have their own gods, don’t they?’ Janaki asks, puzzled.

‘This is their goddess, not to be mixed up with the Kolhapur Mahalakshmi either in form or powers. This one’s no more than a pile of stones with a goddess mask on top. It is possible she was called by some other name in the early days, who knows? The story goes that this idol used to dwell in a cave on top of the hill. The Warlis had to do a very tough climb to worship her. She was known to grant babies to infertile women and bless the fertile. A pregnant woman once felt a strong desire to worship her, but couldn’t climb the hill in her condition. That night the goddess appeared to the priest in a dream and commanded him to carry her to the foot of the hill and install her there. We don’t know if the Warlis improvised a temple for her in place of her cave. But the one you see now was built by Gujarati merchants. The temple business is now in their hands, but the priest is still a Warli.’