The older women sit stirring the jaggery paanaka. Intense discussions are held over the correct flavouring of the paanaka before it is offered first to the boy playing Kamadeva, then to Annaiah and then to all and sundry.

Every year, Annaiah patiently sits with the women who are stringing mallige and kendasampige flowers into an enormous garland for the boy who plays Kamadeva. The boy will first have to wear the garland, pick out one mallige from the garland, blow out all the pollen and laugh, just like what happens in Annaiah’s stories. No one knows for sure, but Annaiah always declares that the pollen goes to fall on one of the kendasampige buds in the garland which promptly flowers. There, see, Annaiah points. No one can see this, except Sundru, who had always seen this, right from the time when he was a little boy.

The doll Ramani is placed by the banyan tree near the wall. Kamadeva takes the garland off, goes to the banyan tree and puts it around Ramani’s neck, accompanied by the entire village in procession, beating their tamate and dollu and blowing the kahales, dancing and drunk on saraayi.

Once the garlanding is done, the boy’s role is over. The doll Ramani is carried in a makeshift pallakki made of firewood to the Kamadeva temple, where she is placed on a pile of dead wood, along with another doll, which represents Kamadeva. The boy who plays Siva, which for the last few years had been Rajegowda, sets fire to that pile of wood and the dolls with it.

The villagers then chant the words that have been passed on to them down generations. Kamanna kattige, kattige ge kolu, kolige benki, benkige dahana! Krishnegowda explains to Bhaskaraiah that this means, give wood to Kamadeva, put a stick to the wood, set fire to the stick and give the sacrifice to the fire. These, he explains, are the ancient words that destroy negative desires or kama and purify the world of its sins. It is also a warning, he says, that no one should control or manipulate others through their emotions and physical desires. If such a thing is attempted, Siva, the Destroyer, will burn them.

For the last five years, Sundru has routinely blown at the mallige flower and laughed in a way that disturbed all the girls. He garlanded the Ramani doll and watched her perish in the fire along with the Kamadeva doll without feeling a thing. This year, though, it is a different story. For the first time that the villagers can remember, the Kamanahabba coincides with the seventh full moon. And all the villagers who keep the count of the full-moon nights are uneasy.