They string their bows, shoot down distant fruit from the trees and pluck flowers of all shades for her. They go to saffron-clad seers, consult kaleidoscopic tantris, seek obscure dream messages from their gods. They bring purple-and-gold charms and silver talismans from distant temples, anointed goats blessed by oracles and herb-stuffed local fowl bewitched by grey-haired wise women and medicine men.

Some follow fables. They climb tall trees to find copper-coloured snakes and green ghosts who might help them. They hunt high and low for the gem-bedecked wooden horse that grows wings to take them across the seven seas for the glowing jewel in the stomach of the rakshasa – the jewel that will lift the enchantment the rajkumari is under. Others wear pumpkin masks, ride donkeys, turn themselves into bigger fools than they are. They sing, dance, perform magic tricks. But, alas, none can win a smile or even a look from the princess.

The most daring go searching in forests for that gumma who makes sharey on every seventh full-moon night. They hope to barter whatever they have in exchange for colourful powers that will help them win the princess. They are never heard from again.

At last Ramani herself finds a way to deal with it. Prompted by the unknown voices that whisper to her night and day, she sneaks away from her patient but tired guards and goes down into the bowels of her father’s palace. She walks through passages she has never seen and whose existence she has never dreamt of.

In a dark and remote corner of the pearl-pink stone palace, she finds a secret tunnel going to the very core of the earth. Through this tunnel, she crawls and slips and slides to come out inside a thick dark forest that brings her here, to the wrong side of the wall.

She waits every night. She waits for Kamadeva, whose eyes gleam with cruel laughter when he sees the rajkumari become a mere woman in need of him.

All the boys and the girls listening to the tale are looking melancholy by now. They feel Ramani’s despair. The lines that mark their parents’ faces deepen too, the grim battles of their lives more clearly etched. Annaiah slowly shakes his head.

It is not Kamadeva who wins this battle, Annaiah says. Kamadeva may be the Purusha. But Ramani is Prakriti, the one who creates and controls everything. Her dreams tell her what to do. Every seventh full-moon night, she can climb the wall on steps of cool white marble. These steps are always there but only she can see them and only on that night, when the light strikes at a certain angle and the time is right.

On the other side of the wall she looks around. She is in Deyi Baidethi’s wild garden, which appears in whichever form anyone wants it. Ramani sees a deep well. Prompted by the unknown voices, she turns her left ear to it. The water deep inside the earth ought to have been still but it sloshes in blessing for her.