When the boy’s class ten exams were around the corner, his family was panic-stricken. But Vishal Iyer, ‘Vishu’ to his family and friends, wondered what the fuss was about. Yes, there was an examination ahead, but he had been preparing for it. No last-minute scamper for him. As for the doubts related to his focus on studies, he did not care to respond. On the few occasions that he was caught with books, they were either on physics or algebra, or both. Sometimes, Vishu would be found bent over slim booklets on obscure or ‘pointless’ (his father’s words) scriptures – a Bhrigu Samhita or a Garuda Purana – on the rain-soaked terrace of his family’s large cottage, with its red Mangalorean tiles, a sprawling banana orchard in the back and flower beds in the front.

Vishu was fond of sports magazines, especially those covering Brazilian soccer or Chinese martial arts, but reading them was not exactly an academic pursuit, and his family made sure he knew that. His father was especially hard on him. Vishu, the school’s champion in chess, karate and debating, was an ‘embarrassment’, who had no purpose in life other than being a loser, his father, Srinivas, had snarled in one of his darker moods.

Srinivas owned a well-known local restaurant that specialized in Chinese cuisine apart from the staple south Indian dishes. He was also the treasurer of the management trust of the Perumal temple in the neighbourhood. He did not visit the temple too often. Religion, for him, was not for public display and was one’s private concern. He chose to perform his puja at home.

Vishu’s mother, Madhavi, had no particular opinion on his academic excellence or the lack of it, but was sure that her capable son would take care of his studies, as he did with most affairs in his life. She doted on him and took him to the Perumal temple with her every morning when she went to offer her respects to the deity.

Vishu’s twin brothers, Shiva and Varun, were eight years older than him. They felt protective towards him. At times, they would also pull him up for being too much of a ‘free spirit’. The twins had dropped out of their BA and BCom courses respectively to assist their father at the restaurant, even though Srinivas had never asked them to do so.

Atharv, twenty-eight, Vishu’s eldest brother, a lawyer by profession, was a loser too in his father’s eyes. Atharv took no interest in the restaurant, the chores at home or the affairs of the Vishnu temple. Three years ago, Srinivas had asked him to put in a few hours at the restaurant in the mornings, when it wasn’t as crowded as in the evenings or at night, so that Srinivas could pay a little more attention to his fledgling career as the leader of a pro-Hindutva party.