‘How’re things in Chakan?’ Anima asks him as she enters.

‘Everything's fine by Lord Vitthal's grace,’ Jijabhau answers, his smile widening.

As soon as Feroze and she have settled down, Jijabhau comes in carrying a tray of nankhatai biscuits and patrel. Tea will follow. On a side table sit eleven fat volumes of the unabridged Mahabharata translated into Marathi. Feroze picks up the volume on top, opens it at a flagged page and says, ‘This is where I want you to start reading.’ After a pause he half closes his eyes and says, ‘I’m planning something really big. Something I’ve never attempted before.’

Anima looks at the page he has opened. It's in the sixteenth book of the Mahabharata. She weighs the volume in her hands. She must read slowly and clearly because Feroze's acquaintance with Marathi is casual. They drink their tea first, wordlessly. The tea at Feroze's house is flavoured with lemon grass. Anima doesn’t always enjoy it. But it seems pleasant enough on this hot and humid afternoon. She does not have a nankhatai or a patrel, nor does Feroze. Both have a sense of urgency, knowing they are about to start on something solemn and significant.

‘I don’t want the entire thing read,’ Feroze instructs her as she glances over the page. ‘I know what happens. The events. What I want to hear are the descriptions. Of all those omens that foretell the end. What Yudhishthir saw, what the people of Dwarka saw—all the colours, the sound, the magic.’

Anima begins to read.

In this way the Vrishni and Andhak clans made attempts to turn away the great calamity that was about to strike them. But even as they were doing so, Death was visiting their homes. His visage was terrifying and his accoutrements menacing. His body was black and bloodless. He would appear in the homes of the Vrishnis to observe them and disappear as suddenly as he came. The moment they spotted him, the finest archers of the land would send a shower of arrows in his direction. But he, who had the power to destroy the entire human race, was hardly going to be destroyed by their arrows.

Now, every day, terrifying storms blew that made people's hair stand on end. They heralded the annihilation of the Andhak and Vrishni clans. Rats multiplied in such numbers that they spilled on to the streets and ran amok. They made holes in cooking pots and nibbled away hair and nails as people slept. Mynahs screeched in Vrishni homes without a second's peace, having forgotten their honeyed call. Under the influence of Death, white-winged pigeons with red claws flitted in and out of Andhak homes. Cows began giving birth to asses, mules to elephants and dogs to cats . . .

Feroze's face is still with intense thought. His eyes are closed. ‘Yes please. Go on.’