The engineer, the dead fish and the bag of earth.

Lootika had wound up her fieldwork. While her group was not much interested, she somehow convinced them to go with her to the shrine of shAmalAjI. To its north lay some derelict shrines, which had been vandalized in the days of yore by the marauding Ghazis of Alla-ad-din Khalji. Their curiosity being piqued a bit they wandered around in the vicinity of the shrines. Lootika drifted away from her group for a while and went towards a small shrine, under an ashvattha tree, which was strangling a large amalaka tree, much like the mlechCha alliance strangles a heathen nation. She shone her torch to see if there was anything within. Too her surprise she saw an exquisite image of kArttikeya. He had a single head with an exquisite ram-horn crown. To his right was a peacock and to his left was the graha-mAtR^i sunandA wearing a turban, on whose head he rested his elbow. In his right hand he held a mAtulu~Nga fruit while in his left hand he held a large shakti. Lootika was amazed and looked more closely. As she gazed at the image she remembered that Somakhya had mentioned something about the pashchimAMnAya of the kaumAra shAsana when he had given her the secret 8-syllabled manu. It struck her that this might be the temple installed by manvarNavanAtha and his dUtI sarvama~NgalA, the preceptors of the adhoretas lineage of the mAnavaugha at the time the great emperor harShavardhana ruled over most of India to the north of the Narmada. She excitedly scooped some earth from the foot of the shrine and placed it in a bag hoping to gift it to Somakhya. Just then she heard her group calling out her name, stating that they needed to be going. She hurriedly placed the earth in her backpack and rushed back to join the rest.

The next day they got on the train and returned to their home city. On getting off the train they found that the whole station looked deserted. That was rather strange they thought as normally at that time of the day the station would hardly have any standing space, even as the masses of bhArata poured out to make their way to far-flung towns and cities. They found that their phones did not catch any signal and as they got out of the station they could not find a single cab. This got them worried and they looked around to see if there was someone who could tell them what had happened. To their surprise the restaurant outside the station was shuttered – an unusual sight for a Friday afternoon. Just then they caught sight of a porter who told them that the prime minister had been assassinated and it was best they made their way home carefully because there were riots raging in several parts of the city. The group panicked: Some decided that they were going to board a train and go elsewhere. Others declared they were going wait in the station itself, while Lootika remembered a secret route through the hills which Vidrum had once lead them through. She decided to take that to reach her place. A couple of others with light luggage decided to accompany her while the rest adopted their own plans.

Continued…