Mahadevegowda makes a wish-horse out of hay, jumps on it and goes there, carrying his fragrant garland. His mother-in-law too shakes her head and says that maybe Bhageerathi is at her friend’s house. Very puzzled now, he rides his hay horse to the friend’s house. The friend, stony-eyed, tells him, ‘Your wife has jumped into the well. That is why we have water.’

Mahadevegowda stands on the street and demands justice. ‘Why have you killed my wife and my unborn child?’ he asks The village stands mute. They watch, unmoving again, as the heartbroken Mahadevegowda, carrying his garland, makes a running leap to the village well and follows his wife and child in. The water in the well takes on the smells of the swetasanchari and suryavamsi, which it retains to this day. And the flowers grow plentifully all around, for the very groundwater takes their seeds and smell into itself.

The villagers, however, can’t bring themselves to drink the water that consumed the young girl, her baby and her man. Led by their headman, they leave the village behind, climb the wall and settle here, never to go back. Their old habitation turns to dust with time.

As Annaiah ends his tale, the villagers around him look upset. There is no chatter, no discussion as, one by one, they leave the Kamadeva temple and go back to their houses. This is one tale no one wants to talk about, no one wants to remember. Annaiah repeats, the wall is dangerous, so is gumma, don’t forget that. And the warning stays.

It is Ajji’s elder sister Chikthayi who tells her what happens next. Doddegowda’s impressionable young sister, Putti, Chikthayi’s best friend and their cousin, is one of the many girls in the village who falls madly in love with Annaiah. Chikthayi has also fallen for him, but Putti is the first to speak of her feelings, and so Chikthayi must keep quiet. After a lot of heartache and extensive discussions with Chikthayi on the matter, Putti decides to tell Annaiah what she wants.

Chikthayi tries to dissuade her, pointing out that Doddegowda, for all his kindness to Annaiah, would certainly not like his only sister to have any kind of relationship with a vagabond. Putti accuses Chikthayi of trying to double-cross her – which is actually true – and makes secret plans of her own.

It must have been predestined, Ajji feels, when Chikthayi tells her the tale. It is the day of the seventh full moon after that year’s Kamanahabba, the festival of colours in honour of Kamadeva, celebrated one week after the Ooramma’s jathre. This is about three months after Annaiah’s arrival in the village. Putti and Chikthayi are sitting on the stone katte beneath the arali tree in the village, discussing the young boys and girls in the village throwing colour at each other, how the performance of Kamadeva’s destruction by Siva was so boring this year, how the paanaka prepared by the village women was better than last year’s and so on.