‘But you were good, Nala,’ Varcin said. ‘You are exceptionally good at dodging an attack from behind.’

‘I hear them coming.’ Nala dabbed salve on his slit lip. ‘Fat lot of good it does me.’

Yet, with time and practice, Nala was able to dodge Craw’s punches even from the front. Strangely, he heard the vibrations in the air before the punch landed on his head, and instinctively swayed behind to dodge it. He could not kick back. He was not big or strong enough to land an effective blow. But he was quick. Little victories.

Classes of healing were spent in company of soil and worms in Acharya Gautam’s dispensary and Acharya Lujanne’s gardens. Acharya Lujanne was a short man, disinterested in speech; he used his hands instead for communication. The varying pitches of his grunts were the only indicators of whether they were doing something right or not. The gardens were vast, comprising long orderly families of medicinal plants. Ukopa was a master of the subject, creating concoctions and poultices in no time. Even Varcin could soon bandage an arm and set a displaced bone. Nala was mostly assigned to pruning, a barber of trees in short. He was said to have indelicate hands. A compliment for a Valka.

History was a class the Shishyas looked forward to, for Acharya Vyas spent most of his time at the blackboard, allowing the Shishyas adequate time to sleep and recover from their ordeals. Nonetheless, they read about the histories of empires, the biology of the Daevas and Danavas, the laws of Manusmriti, the great migration and the effects of samudra manthan on the glacial age.

‘The knowledge of our ancestors helps prevent the mistakes they made. We can learn a lot from them,’ Varcin said, defending the subject.

‘What’s the use?’ Nala replied, turning over a chapter on another war. ‘We make new ones, or rather,’ he read the cause of the seventeenth Lankan War, ‘make the same ones again and again.’

‘I still think knowledge of history is crucial. Without it, we are like tomatoes who don’t know we are a fruit, not a vegetable.’

‘Tomato is a fruit?’ Nala was shocked.

‘Nala?’ Acharya Vyas rotated slowly on his axis.

‘Yes, Acharya,’ Nala responded, flustered by the sudden attention.

‘How do Nardevaks recognize each other when they look completely like Mortals?’

‘Uhm…’ Nala scratched his chin, jogging his memory. Nardevaks were half Daeva-half Man. And that’s about all he could remember. ‘By their smell?’ he hazarded a guess. Varcin suppressed a laugh.

‘Indeed,’ Vyas said, stroking his cane like a lover. ‘If the Nardevaks was to smell like you Nala, I am sure the entire world would recognize them. Too bad they practiced hygiene.’