The devvas too are cursed by the gumma – they must cook food for the youth they have trapped by burning their own legs as firewood. As they cook, they scream with pain that is a thousand times more acute than anything humans can feel. As soon as the food is ready, their legs are restored and unblemished, all the pain gone. But the devvas know that they have this reprieve only until the next meal that the man must have, every day, until he dies and is fed to the gumma’s fire.

The villagers believe that some unknown god, long ago, built this wall to keep the gumma, his sharey and his kolli devvas away from their village. Everyone knows the tales, passed on by grandmothers in every generation. And everyone keeps away from the wall.

1

THE BANYAN TREE

y Annaiah’s period, there are deep cracks in the wall, despite the contempt for time that the stone gives off in waves. The villagers fear it less now, and their paddy and ragi fields extend almost to the shrubs. Still, when they sow the seedlings, they stop about ten feet short of the wall. The fact is, nothing grows beyond that line.

The men are curious about how the shrubs have managed to grow. The women don’t bother: not only are they too busy running homes and working in the fields, they know very well that there is evil behind the wall. Many a woman feels a shiver run up her spine when she, desperate to relieve herself, goes into the multi-row thorny shrubs. Some gossip in whispers about the wall and its evil, but most would rather not talk about it.

As time goes by, cows break open a portion of the shrub wall. On the heels of the cows, some cowherd boys – later soundly scolded by headman Doddegowda – venture in. They report that for about a kilometre behind the wall, the thorny shrubs have to be hacked through with a sharp knife or axe. These implements soon grow blunt and they come back disheartened.

By Annaiah’s time though, to the villagers’ shock, a tender, green-leafed banyan tree sprouts on their side of the wall, a little distance from the village. Other than the shrubs, this is the only vegetation that manages to grow there. Oddly, birds do not nest in this tree. Nor do animals go near it, be it the cows, bullocks and goats that graze in the vicinity, or the village’s dogs, cats and fowl. Even rats and reptiles seem to avoid that tree, while no one has seen bats or owls on it.

The tree is beyond the two caste-wells, one upper, one lower, from which the village women draw their daily water. It can just be seen from Dasegowda’s house, the last one in the village.

To the villagers’ amusement, this tree has come up in the exact area which Doddegowda has just claimed for himself. He is contemplating putting in some more paddy. With prices plummeting in the market town seventeen kilometres away and his family increasing day by day, Doddegowda thinks that he needs more land. Also, some inglees people have been claiming chanda from him for about ten years now, because they think that they administer the village, not him. All these years, till his father Hiregowda’s time, the village has been giving some amount of their harvest to the local Raja’s men, but that is almost as if nothing is given. The Raja’s men came very rarely, as the path reaching their village is rocky and full of weeds.