As the villagers look at him, uncomprehending, he laughs again, sits under the banyan tree outside their village and waits.

The villagers go in one by one and ask their headman what the sacrifice is. With tears running down his cheeks, he shakes his head. He can’t even bring himself to repeat it. Then his youngest daughter-in-law, Bhageerathi, comes out of the house to stand in front of all the villagers.

She looks different. The villagers have never seen the headman’s daughter-in-law in a white seere before. Her hair, usually braided with mallige, is loose. Her eyes look bigger than usual, a mesmerizing red. ‘I heard him,’ she says. ‘I know what the jogi wants. He wants me to jump into the well. He says that is how we will get water in this village.’

Horrified, the headman rushes to her. ‘Magale, what are you saying?’

Bhageerathi smiles. ‘Mavaiah, I am the only woman in this village who is pregnant with her first child. That well is the only water in the village and it wants me as sacrifice.’

The villagers watch, stunned, as Bhageerathi walks with a different gait, her head held high, her anklets jangling, to the village well. And before anyone can say anything, she climbs the rim of the well and jumps with a splash that echoes through the village.

All run to the well as thunder and lightning break out in the sky. They peer in and see it brimming. There is no sign of Bhageerathi. They cannot save her. The water in the well sloshes over the rim, and rain pours down from the skies in huge torrents. The jogi dances around the banyan tree in rhythm with the thunder resounding in the sky, beaten by unseen gods. Tears are pouring down the villagers’ faces, mixing with the rain. Their throats are no longer parched but their hearts are cracked.

It rains and rains for seven days and seven nights. At midnight on the seventh night, the still-dancing jogi lifts his left leg hip-high in a graceful arc across his body and stands on the other, crushing the mud beneath him. It still rains. Then the jogi smiles, puts both his powerful legs on the ground and shakes his head. His dark hair comes unbound. He looks up at the sky, raises his arms and pulls the clumps of his hair into a topknot. All the water from the sky rushes into his hair. The rain stops. And the jogi leaves.

Two days later, Bhageerathi’s husband Mahadevegowda, who is actually Kamadeva born as a human, comes back from a pilgrimage he has undergone, seeking the welfare of his unborn child. From a faraway land, he has brought a garland of swetasanchari and suryavamsi flowers, which he himself has woven. The villagers have never seen these flowers before, Annaiah says.

Parrots are flying in circles around him, flowers have bloomed, bees are buzzing, the kogile is singing, the air is fresh as he enters the village. But Deyi Baidethi, invisible to all, is sitting sorrowful. Mahadevegowda goes past the brimming lake and the brimming well, surprised to see so much water. There are no people around, no activity on the streets. Mahadevegowda goes home. There is a funereal silence, the exact opposite of the bursting spring outside. His mother shakes her head and, unable to tell him the truth, says that Bhageerathi has gone to her mother’s house.