The ancient honge tree inside the compound is hit hard by the impact. It creaks for an instant and crashes into the temple wall. Ramappa and Chandru shout for help, pinned under the branches of the great tree. Other than the shaking Dasegowda, who is concentrating so hard that he hasn’t heard the crash, everyone seems to have turned to stone. Bangari gives a great cry and rushes towards her men.

At that moment, lightning crashes again, illuminating Ooramma. Thimmakka, who is looking at the goddess as if in a trance, starts to laugh. With her huge red eyes and glittering jewellery, Ooramma looks just like those women in her Annaiah dream. Still laughing, she rushes forward. Pushing Dasegowda aside, she jumps onto the goddess’s pedestal, trampling on the mallige flowers deposited in prayer there.

As she turns, pulling her knotted hair loose and looking at the assembled folk from Ooramma’s lofty position, the skies open up in sudden thunderous rain. Puttaswamegowda looks at the sight in shock. At that moment, no one can see any difference between the bedecked Ooramma and his own sister Thimmakka!

25. Ooramma Speaks

25

OORAMMA SPEAKS

Listen to me,’ begins Thimmakka, in a deep voice very different from her own. ‘You have betrayed me all these years. You have listened to things that are wrong. You have set up another temple in this village. And you pray to a false god!’

Dasegowda stops shaking and looks at Thimmakka in a daze. ‘Amma? Ooramma?’ he asks, stupefied. ‘Amma? Is it really you? Have you come at last?’ He falls at Thimmakka’s feet in a fever of suddenly found piety.

The thunder seems to reverberate from Thimmakka herself, even as the rain hisses and patters. As her voice takes on a frenzied singsong slowly rising to a screeching pitch, the villagers are petrified. Her whole body vibrates with energy.

‘You have all committed sins!’ screeches Thimmakka-Ooramma. ‘Every one of you will perish for the evil in your village! I will destroy each one of you!’ The voice echoes through brains dulled by this year’s saraayi-like paanaka. It reverberates over the crashing rain.

Thimmakka-Ooramma bends stern red eyes on Puttaswamegowda. ‘It is you,’ she intones, ‘you and your family that brought the evil into the village. You and your family alone can destroy it.’

‘What is the evil? We will destroy it! Tell us, O Amma, why are you angry?’ cries Dasegowda, feeding fuel to Thimmakka’s fire.

‘Yes, tell us, Amma! We are dust at your feet! Don’t destroy us, Amma! Tell us,’ come frightened cries from the villagers.

Puttaswamegowda turns to Bhaskaraiah in the hope of scholarly sanity. Bhaskaraiah is babbling with the others, fear blanching his face. Krishnegowda stands next to him in the rain, near the fallen tree which has trapped Ramappa and Chandru, silent and watchful. He is calculating, as usual, how he can use the situation to his best advantage.