✵ I. The Year the Rains Forgot Them
Another year turned over Rayalaseema like a page that had been turned too many times.
The sky, when it remembered, sent clouds.
When it forgot, the sun hammered the land without mercy.
That year, it mostly forgot.
Dry winds blew dust into every crack. Wells sank lower, their ropes scraping new grooves into stone. The tanks that should have been shimmering mirrors of water were sullen, shallow pools ringed by cracked mud.
Children still played, of course—because children played even when kingdoms fell.
But even their games shifted.
More often, they played "fetch water" than "king and court."
❖
In the Uyyalawada house, Narasimha was now old enough to be given a new word:
"Responsibility."
He hated it instantly.
"Come, kanna," his mother called one afternoon. "You're not a baby anymore. Time to help with counting bags of grain."
"Amma…" he groaned, flopping face-first onto a mat. "I know how many we have. Too few. Finished. No need to count."
His grandmother snorted.
"Look at him. Already speaking like an old man, but still crying like a child about work."
His mother grabbed his ankle and dragged him—gently but with no mercy—across the floor toward the back room.
"Why are you dragging a wounded soldier, Amma?" he protested, clinging dramatically to a pillar. "Have I not suffered enough under the sun?"
"You have suffered exactly ten minutes of boredom," she said dryly. "Come and suffer ten more. Then we will see if you live."
He made a strangled noise, but he came.
He liked people. He liked stories. He liked watching.
He did not like counting sacks of grain.
To him, they all looked like one large sack called "problems."
Still, under his complaining, he watched how his mother separated sacks into "household" and "reserve for poor families." He noticed that their own share was not very big.
"Why do we keep less for us?" he asked once, frowning.
"Because, kanna," his mother said quietly, "if we eat full while others eat half, they will not curse the sky. They will curse our house."
He thought about that.
He didn't say anything.
But later that night, when his grandmother tried to sneak him an extra sweet, he took half a bite and then went outside, breaking pieces to share with two village children who happened to be near the gate.
"Why?" they asked, wide-eyed.
"Because," he said, aiming for adult seriousness and landing somewhere between wise and adorable, "if I get fat and you stay thin, people will curse me. I don't want extra curses. Eat."
❖ II. Lessons He Never Asked For
His father, seeing his son's growing sharpness, began what he called "small lessons."
Narasimha called them something else in his head: small torments.
They were not grand formal teachings. There was no gurukul yet, no guru with beard and stick. Just moments snatched between crises.
When a farmer came to speak of a failing well, the chieftain would let his son sit nearby.
"Listen," he'd say afterward, "to what he didn't say. He complained about the well… but he is afraid of something else too."
When a trader came with accounts, the chieftain would show him the palm-leaf tally.
"These marks here," he explained, "are not just numbers. They are people's work turned into grain turned into tax turned into power. If we misread even one line, someone will go hungry."
Narasimha listened. He understood… partially.
He understood that his father's job was not just to say "yes" and "no," but to know who would bleed each time he chose.
He did not understand why there had to be so much writing.
One morning, his father sat him down with a piece of slate and chalk.
"Write 'Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy'," he said. "If your name is long, your hand must be strong."
Narasimha looked at the slate like it had personally insulted him.
"Appa," he sighed dramatically, "if my name was just 'Ram,' life would be easier. Less writing. Who decided to give me three whole words?"
His father smirked.
"The day you were born, everyone brought names," he said. "I chose this because I wanted you to remember three things: where you come from, who you are, and what you will be."
"What will I be?" he grumbled, scratching the first line shakily. "Hunchback. From writing."
"Leader," his father corrected, amused. "Who may or may not be a hunchback. That depends on how much he escapes his lessons."
✢ III. The Story Under the Banyan Tree
One evening, the sky was a copper bowl and the air held the taste of dust and old secrets.
Under the village banyan tree, the elders and some younger men sat in a circle. The old storyteller, who had lived long enough to see the world change twice, was in the mood to talk of epics.
Children gathered at the edge of the circle. Narasimha, dusty from play, slipped in quietly and sat cross-legged, his wooden lion in his lap.
Today's topic was the Mahabharata.
"…and so, Pitamaha Bhishma lay on his bed of arrows," the old storyteller said, eyes half-closed, voice steady. "He could have left his body any day. But he had the boon of Ichha-Marana—death only comes when he calls it. He waited until the right moment, when the sun's path was auspicious."
Some of the younger men sighed with admiration.
"What greatness," one murmured. "To choose one's own time of death."
Another added,
"And such loyalty to his father's word. To deny himself marriage, children, a kingdom, only to fulfil a promise."
The old man nodded.
"True," he said. "His vow was terrible in its strength. He is praised even in the heavens."
Narasimha listened, brow furrowed.
He had heard pieces of the story before. He admired Bhishma's courage and power. But something always sat wrong in his chest when he imagined that bed of arrows, that life of sacrifice bound to someone else's mistake.
"Thaatha," he piped up suddenly, "if he was so great… why does my heart feel… sad when I hear his story?"
The circle turned to look at him.
The old man examined the boy's face, saw not irreverence but genuine conflict.
"Because, kanna," he said gently, "greatness and sorrow often walk together. Bhishma is great, yes. But his greatness carried pain. He stood for dharma as he understood it… but some ask if he might have stood differently, if he had chosen another path."
Narasimha hugged his wooden lion closer.
"If he had power," he said slowly, thinking hard, "and he could choose his death… then why could he not choose to walk away earlier? Why did he not protect Draupadi when they insulted her? Why did he not stop them?"
One of the younger men frowned.
"He was bound by his vow to the throne," he said. "He could not—"
"He could not?" Narasimha repeated, eyes unusually sharp for his age. "Or he chose not to? If he was strongest… then his choice was strongest."
A small silence fell.
The older storyteller smiled faintly, eyes gleaming.
"Ho," he murmured. "Listen to this one. Little lion asks the questions even rishis argue over."
A few men shifted uncomfortably.
One elder cleared his throat.
"Careful, child," he said. "We must respect the great ones."
"I respect him," Narasimha said at once. "He is brave. Strong. But my heart still thinks… if he had been a little less… tied."
He searched for the word.
"Less… stuck," he finished.
Some of the men chuckled despite themselves.
"Stuck," one repeated. "Good word."
The old storyteller leaned forward, voice soft.
"Remember this feeling, kanna," he said. "You may one day have strength like that—maybe more, maybe less. When that day comes, decide whether you will tie yourselves in such knots… or find another way."
Narasimha stared at the ground.
In his chest, something clicked.
He did not know yet that far above him, six divine figures listened as well, and exchanged a glance that said, See? This is why they had decided to give him Bhishma's strength without Bhishma's chains.
✶ IV. The Night of Three Questions
That night, Narasimha could not sleep.
The story of Bhishma, the memory of the British officer, the taste of dry dust, the weight of sacks of grain—all tugged at him.
Unable to lie still, he got up quietly, careful not to wake his mother, and padded out into the courtyard.
The night was cool. The stars seemed nearer, as if they had bent down to listen.
He climbed the small steps to the flat part of the roof and sat there, knees drawn up, wooden lion between his hands.
"Why are you awake, kanna?"
The voice made him jump.
His father sat at the far end of the roof, a shadow against the sky. He had been sitting in silence, unseen, watching the village sleep.
"Appa!" Narasimha whispered. "I thought you were inside."
His father smiled.
"Sometimes the house is too loud," he said. "So I come here and argue with the stars. What brings you up to join the case?"
Narasimha hesitated, then walked over and sat beside him.
For a while, they said nothing.
Then the boy spoke.
"Appa," he said slowly, "today Thaatha told about Bhishma. And about his death. And his vow."
"Ah," his father murmured. "Big stories for a small head."
"I am not small," Narasimha protested automatically, then went quiet again.
He stared at the sky.
"Appa," he said again, more quietly this time. "If someone is strong, but tied by someone else's words, are they really free?"
His father's expression grew thoughtful.
"That depends," he said. "Some ties we choose. Some are put on us. Some we do not see until they pull."
"If I become strong," Narasimha said, gripping his lion, "I don't want… knots like that. I don't want to stand and watch when wrong things happen because some words trap me."
His father's eyes darkened with pride and fear.
"You should be careful with such thoughts," he said softly. "They are heavy. Once they enter your heart, they will not leave you easily."
"I don't want them to leave," the boy said stubbornly. "Appa… tell me truth. If I grow and become Dora… will I have to follow Company's words, even if they are wrong?"
His father exhaled slowly.
There it was—the question that had sat in his own heart for years.
"If I say 'no', I will be a liar," he said finally. "If I say 'yes', I will make you hate the world before you finish childhood."
He glanced at his son.
"So I will say this: some orders we cannot stop, only soften. Some we can defy. And some… we must break completely, no matter the cost. Your dharma will be to know which is which."
Narasimha's small face tightened.
"That sounds like more work," he muttered.
His father chuckled softly.
"Being Dora is all work, kanna," he said. "Work of head, hand, and heart. If you hate too much work, you can still run away. No one has forced you yet."
The boy was quiet a long moment.
Up above, a star flickered.
"Appa," he said suddenly, voice steadier than his age should allow. "If I become Dora… I will stand with our people, not above them."
His father tilted his head.
"Mm?"
"And…" Narasimha added, jaw setting, "if someone comes to take what they have no right to, I will not just… reduce the bad thing. I will stop it. If I cannot stop all in one day… then I will keep hitting it little by little, until it cannot stand. Even if that means fighting people stronger than me."
The air seemed to tighten slightly around them.
His father watched him carefully.
"That is a big vow," he said. "You are only five, Narasimha."
"Then I will be five and stubborn," the boy replied. "Later I will be ten and stubborn. Then twenty and stubborn. I will not forget."
He lifted his wooden lion and held it close to his chest, as if anchoring his words there.
"And…" he added, almost as an afterthought, "if I must take power to protect them… I will take it. But I will still hate the paperwork."
His father laughed loud enough to startle a resting bird into flight.
"Ah, there is my son," he said warmly. "Very well, little lion. Be the king who curses his crown. That kind usually rules longer."
He placed a hand gently on the boy's head.
"In this world," he said, more seriously now, "there are kings who love power. And there are kings who love their people. Try to always be the second kind. Even if it breaks your back."
Narasimha nodded.
Inside, something shifted.
His vow was not as grand as a rishi's formal sankalpa. He did not chant mantras, did not pour ghee into fire.
He just spoke quietly, under the open sky, to his father, to the stars, to the gods listening without showing themselves:
"If I must be leader… I will be shield first, king second. And I will never let other people's wrong promises keep me from protecting those who cannot protect themselves."
✹ V. Heaven Records a Child's Promise
In Vaikuntha, the moment those words left his lips, a thin line of light wrote itself into a book that only a few beings could read.
Brahma's fingers paused above an endless scroll.
He smiled faintly.
"So," he said, "it begins."
Saraswati's eyes shone.
"He refuses Bhishma's chains," she murmured. "He respects the strength, but not the binding. This is exactly the child we could not afford to break a second time."
Lakshmi watched the small boy hugging a wooden lion under a dusty sky, promising things he did not yet know the cost of.
"Keshava," she whispered, "if he keeps that vow… his path will be very hard."
Vishnu's expression was soft but steady.
"Dharma always charges its true servants more," he said. "But we will not abandon him to that cost alone."
Parvati had tears in her eyes.
"Naatha," she said to Maheshwara, "when the time comes… give him strength worthy of this promise."
Maheshwara nodded once.
"He will have Ichha-Marana," he said quietly. "But not as a chain. As a tool. And he will have the asura's battle-form not as mindless rage… but as controlled fury against those who prey on the helpless."
Brahma added a note at the margin of his scroll:
At age five, in Rayalaseema, one boy makes a vow to stand with the weak, not above them. Flag this thread. It will disturb many patterns later.
✪ VI. The Training He Never Wanted
The next morning, Narasimha woke up with sore eyes and dust in his hair, but a strange lightness inside.
He had told the sky what he intended.
Now the sky would test him.
It began small.
His father announced,
"From today, Narasimha, you will sit with us when we talk of village matters. You do not have to speak. Just listen."
Narasimha groaned internally.
"Appa," he whined half-heartedly, "can I just listen from far away? Like from… another village?"
"Very funny," his father said. "Sit."
So he sat—legs crossed, back mostly straight.
He learned how land was measured not in miracles, but in cubit lengths and ownership records. He saw how even good men slipped into selfishness when water was scarce. He watched his father say "no" to people he liked because saying "yes" would hurt others more.
He also learned that most disputes did not end with everyone happy.
"Being Dora is like being a stone in river," his father told him one evening. "Everyone's demands crash into you. You cannot move with every wave. If you try, you break. You must be steady and let the water go around you… but sometimes, you must also change the water's flow."
"I liked it better when being Dora just meant eating more sweets at festivals," Narasimha muttered.
His grandmother cackled from the side.
"Eat now," she said. "Later, you'll have so many worries you'll forget the taste."
❖
He learned to read better.
Not because he suddenly loved letters—but because his vow sat in the back of his mind, nagging him.
"What kind of fool king will you be," one part of him whispered, "if you cannot even read the papers that steal people's grain?"
So he clenched his jaw and scratched lines on palm leaves, muttering under his breath:
"Why so many curves in Telugu? Why not straight lines? Straight lines are honest. These letters are like Company–too many twists."
His writing teacher blinked, then burst out laughing.
"Write slowly, kanna," he advised. "If you fight the letters, they will fight you back."
✧ VII. The Lion in Play, the Asura in Embers
With his friends, meanwhile, Narasimha remained the same—if not more playful.
He raced with them through narrow lanes.
He climbed small rocks and pretended they were mountains.
He acted out stories from the epics, sometimes as Arjuna, sometimes as Hanuman, once loudly insisting he wanted to play Krishna, because "he gets to talk the most and fight only when he wants."
In these games, his personality showed in flashes:
When someone weaker was bullied, he stepped in.
When the game called for a "king," he played it too well—back straight, voice commanding.
When they made him "sinner king" as a joke so they could "attack" him, he threw his hands up and shouted,
"Fine, fine! I surrender. Take the throne. I am going to sleep. You enjoy meetings and counting people's goats!"
The other children roared with laughter.
"You talk like an old drunk man," one of them said admiringly.
"I talk like a tired man," he corrected. "Old and drunk I will become later if this responsibility thing grows more."
He made light of it, but each game, each mock throne, each pretend "judgement" pressed him closer to the path the gods already saw—leader whether he wanted the title or not.
❖
Still, there were moments—short, bright, frightening—when a different side rose.
Once, when an older boy from another village tried to steal a toy from one of the younger children, grabbing him by the collar, Narasimha stepped in.
"Leave him," he said.
The older boy sneered.
"Or else?"
In answer, Narasimha stepped closer.
His face did not twist. His voice did not rise.
But for a fleeting heartbeat, the air around him cooled.
The older boy's hand on the smaller child's collar trembled. He felt, irrationally, like he had just grabbed the tail of a sleeping lion.
He dropped his hand.
"…fine," he muttered. "Keep your stupid toy."
He walked away quickly, confused by his own reaction.
The younger children did not quite understand what had happened—but they looked at Narasimha with new awe.
Later, alone, the boy stared at his hands.
"What are you?" he whispered to himself, not expecting an answer.
Deep inside, something old and vast and bright lay coiled, waiting.
Not yet, it seemed to murmur. When the time comes, you will know.
✵ VIII. Echoes in the Empire
While a lion cub made childish vows under a dusty sky, the British administration continued scratching ink across paper.
In a district office many miles away, a senior official read a compiled report:
"Local chieftain of Uyyalawada estate continues to exert disproportionate influence over surrounding villages.
Recent observation: his son, approximately five years of age, already displays unusual confidence among natives.
Incidents of villagers remarking: 'The boy has Narasimha's eyes; when he grows, the British will not find it easy here.'
Recommendation: monitor family closely. Where possible, bind them with agreements and honours, to channel influence rather than confront it directly."
The official sipped his tea and shook his head slightly.
"Savages and their omens," he muttered.
But he underlined one phrase anyway:
The boy has Narasimha's eyes.
He did not know that if he could have seen further, he might have written instead:
The boy carries Narasimha's roar.
✦ IX. The Temple and the Quiet Blessing
A few weeks after that starry-roof vow, there was a small festival at the local Narasimha temple.
It was not one of the grand days. No huge crowd, no extended ritual. Just an auspicious date, a simple abhishekam, flowers, lamps, and songs.
The chieftain's family came early.
Inside the garbhagriha, the air was cool despite the heat outside. The lion-faced deity glowed with oil and turmeric, garlanded in marigold and jasmine. Lamps flickered at his feet.
Narasimha stood in front with his parents, hands folded.
As the priest chanted, the boy stared at the idol's eyes.
He remembered his own vow under the stars, the girl's anklet, Rangaiah's bowed head, the old storyteller's tale of Bhishma, his father's words about shields and stones.
Without thinking, he whispered in his heart:
If you are there… watch me. If I try to run from my duty, pull me back. But… if I ever stand and do nothing when someone is hurt… then you can roar at me.
The words were clumsy, half-formed, but sincere.
For a moment, the flame of the nearest lamp swayed toward him, like a tongue of light.
The priest blinked. Did the flame just lean toward the boy?
He walked around to do the final aarti.
As he brought the lamp near Narasimha, the child instinctively reached out his small hand—not touching the flame, but holding his palm open as if expecting… something.
He did not see anything.
But he felt a warmth sink into his hand, then travel up his arm into his chest, where it settled around his heart like a barely-there ring of fire.
He flinched, surprised, but did not pull away.
The priest's chant faltered half a breath, then resumed.
Watching from the doorway, the old siddhar who had visited once before and stayed hidden at the back for this festival murmured to himself:
"Ah. The lion blesses the lion cub. Very good. Very dangerous."
He smiled, eyes full of both blessing and sympathy.
"Grow well, little one," he whispered. "You have chosen a path that will not easily let you rest."
✵ X. The First Vow, Remembered
That night, as the village settled into sleep, Narasimha lay on his mat once more, breathing in the faint smell of oil, dust, and leftover incense clinging to his hair.
His hand, the one that had felt the strange warmth, tingled faintly.
He thought of his vow again, this time not with a child's bravado, but with a quiet, lingering solemnity.
Stand with them, not above them, he reminded himself.
Break wrong chains, not people's backs.
He didn't know that vows like these did not vanish. They echoed upward.
Above him, in Vaikuntha, the Trimurti and Tridevi did not hold a formal council for every small thought he had.
But sometimes, when he spoke like this—even in his heart—they turned their faces toward him for a moment.
"His path diverges more and more from the one we first laid upon him in Satya Yuga," Brahma mused. "Good. Let it."
Lakshmi touched her Lord's arm.
"Keshava," she said softly, "he will weep often, I think. Not for himself, but from the weight of others' pain."
Vishnu's eyes glimmered.
"Then, when he sits in his court one day, firm and majestic, they will not know that half the strength in his voice comes from nights he spent crying in secret."
Parvati smiled through emotion.
"He will complain about everything—kingship, paperwork, duties, meetings. He will ask 'Why me?' a thousand times."
Maheshwara's lips curved slightly.
"And yet," he said, "he will still show up, teeth bared, every time his people are threatened."
Saraswati added,
"And when he must become asura to his enemies, his heart will still be human to his friends—crying, laughing, making foolish jokes, asking why kingship does not come with less paper and more sleep."
The six shared a brief, fond silence for a child who did not know how much love had been poured into him.
Down below, in a small stone house in Rayalaseema, a boy of five turned over in his sleep, hugging his wooden lion as if it were a shield.
The first arc of his childhood—the one shaped by birth, first injustice, and first vow—was quietly closing.
Ahead waited:
years of watching and learning,
trade routes and secret networks,
shadows and swords,
thrones he'd curse,
and enemies who would one day see not a boy, not even a man—
but an asura-faced lion whose roar carried the weight of the vow he'd made as a child.
For now, he simply dreamed.
And the land, the gods, the spies, and the distant powers of the wider universe—
continued to wait for the day when the child who grumbled about work would be unable to run from the very destiny he tried to joke away.