Chapter 38 - Conversation

Ganesh opened his eyes and sat up immediately. His expression didn't change.

Today was the day.

Years of groundwork and planning were about to culminate right now.

He walked to his desk and picked up the roll of parchment. He gave the music score a final look. Every note was intentional, and every beat was measured, for there was no room for error. The irony was that it could not be rehearsed or mechanical; it had to sound improvised and impromptu. Usually, the music leads a performance. Ganesh hoped to instigate a very particular kind of performance, but it had to occur organically. The performers couldn't feel as though they were being led on a leash.

He scanned the final measure in silence.

Ganesh rolled the parchment tight. He didn't need to read it again. The music was already etched into his mind. The story had already played out in his dreams.

He lifted his Veena from its stand and felt the familiar weight settle against his hands. He waved his palms, and the Mridangam, Ghatam, and Tanpura floated behind him. He took a deep breath and stepped out into the hallway.

The garden waited.

Ganesh carried his instruments into the garden and found a spot in the shade. The afternoon sun beat down on the humble grounds and illuminated Parvathy as she moved between the rows of herbs and flowers with her hands coated in soil.

He settled cross-legged on the grass. He balanced the large Veena across his lap and rested the neck against his shoulder. He plucked the first string.

The note rang out sharply. Parvathy didn't look up from her work, but her head tilted slightly. Ganesh followed the sharp note with a quick arohanam and avarohanam, and ran up and down the scale.

Parvathy paused. She wiped a stray hair from her forehead with her wrist and made a few quick gestures with her muddy fingers.

'Too bright. Lower.'

Ganesh nodded. He adjusted his grip and repeated the scale with a flattened note. This time, Parvathy gave a short, satisfied nod and went back to inspecting the roots of a jasmine shrub.

Ganesh began to play in earnest. He started slow, letting the melody drift. He watched his mother work and let his fingers mimic her rhythm. When she smoothed the soil, the music flowed like water. Then, she froze. She pinched a leaf on the tulsi plant and plucked a fat caterpillar from the stem. Ganesh plucked a surprised, staccato high note.

A moment later, the family cat rolled enthusiastically into a pile of fresh dirt. Parvathy sighed, and her shoulders slumped. Ganesh plucked a sliding, discordant twang that perfectly mirrored her frustration.

The music became a shadow to her movements. It ebbed and flowed with the mundane chores of the garden.

Eventually, Parvathy stood up. She dusted off her hands and picked up a basket of freshly harvested flowers to head inside. As she walked away, Ganesh softened the volume and let the melody fade into a decrescendo. She stopped walking. The music halted instantly.

She turned and looked at him. Ganesh struck a single, playful note. Parvathy raised an eyebrow.

Ganesh smiled. After a second, she matched it.

She set the basket down on the grass. With practised ease, she tucked the pleats of her sari tighter into her waist and lowered herself into the arai mandalam: the half-seated stance.

Ganesh set the Veena aside and pulled the heavy Mridangam onto his lap. The air behind him shimmered, and two spectral arms sprouted from his back. They reached out and grabbed the long-necked Tanpura. He strummed it to create a flat, monotonous drone that underpinned the silence.

Mother and son locked eyes.

Ganesh slapped the leather face of the drum.

They began.

Ganesh's fingers danced over the percussion skins, and Parvathy moved in perfect collaboration. It was a pure display of Nritta: an abstract dance. It was a display of rhythm and skill, and not an expression of a story or narrative. Ganesh cycled through complex time signatures while Parvathy matched him with precise footwork, and the bells on her anklet jingled in time with his strikes.

As the tempo climbed, the garden gate creaked open. The pleasant chime announced Shiva's arrival.

He stepped in and froze. He watched his wife, currently lost in the movement, with a soft and enamoured smile. Ganesh moved to dampen the sound, but Shiva quickly waved a hand.

'Don't stop.'

Ganesh suppressed a smirk. He manifested another pair of arms from his sides. These hands grabbed the Ghatam, the clay pot drum, and pressed the mouth of it against his belly.

The "flavour" of the sounds changed. The deep, resounding bass of the Mridangam was now interlaced with the sharp, metallic twangs of the clay pot. Parvathy responded immediately and switched her style from fluid grace to sharp, forceful strikes against the earth.

From the corner of his eye, Ganesh saw Shiva's foot tapping against the gravel. The smile on his father's face was obvious now. Ganesh shifted the rhythm again and turned the aggressive beat into something more inviting. He laid down a sequence of introductory beats like a clear opening for a third participant.

Shiva didn't hesitate. He took four large, in-rhythm strides and entered the performance, and assumed a stance right beside his wife.

Parvathy glanced to her side. The joy on her face evaporated and was replaced with a careful neutrality. She straightened her legs and exited her stance. She nodded once to her husband and bent down to retrieve her flower basket.

Shiva's expression fell.

Ganesh didn't let the silence settle. He rolled his fingers across the drumheads and swelled the volume from a whisper to a booming command. The sound seemed to steel Shiva's resolve. The sadness in his eyes hardened into determination.

As Parvathy turned to leave, Shiva danced into her path and blocked her way.

Parvathy didn't speak. She bowed her head and side-stepped to the left. Shiva mirrored the move and cut her off again. She tried to feign to the right, but Shiva split his form. Suddenly, there were ten of him, and they formed a wall of movement around her.

Ganesh took a breath and split his own form. Now, multiple versions of himself sat in the garden. Their rhythms overlapped with impossible perfection and created an immense sound.

Parvathy looked around at the blockade of her husbands, and an irritated scowl twisted her brow. She let out a sharp exhale and fractured her own form, and created a copy for every Shiva that stood in her way.

For a heartbeat, the garden was still.

Then, every version of Ganesh struck their drums in unison.

The garden erupted into motion. It was an impromptu, chaotic, yet precisely choreographed sequence. Ten different, distinct yet cohesive rhythms resonated at once. The parents danced out a game of evasion and pursuit. Their feet kicked up dust as the music drove them harder.

When the intensity reached its peak, Ganesh began to de-escalate. He dissolved one of his copies into mist. Taking the cue, one pair of parents faded away. The pattern continued, and the crowd thinned out beat by beat, until only the original three remained in the centre of the garden.

Ganesh transitioned the beat. He dropped the sharp percussion of the Ghatam. His spectral arms reached for the Veena again and overlaid a melody on top of the rhythm. The performance shifted from a display of technical prowess to an intimate conversation.

Shiva looked deep into his wife's eyes. She met his gaze, but only for a second. A faint shimmer of hope flickered across her face, but old disappointment drowned it out just as quickly. She looked away.

Shiva reached out. He took her chin in his hand and gently lifted her face until she had no choice but to look at him.

'Wife,' his eyes seemed to say.

Parvathy stared back. Her expression remained blank.

'I'm… I'm sorry,' he continued.

'What for?' her eyes countered, cool and unbothered.

Shiva didn't have an answer. His hand fell from her chin. He turned his head and gestured toward his son.

Parvathy sank deep into arai mandalam. With her hands, she formed the Simhamukha mudra - her fingers curled into taut claws, while her elbows flared out to suggest the breadth of a massive chest. She moved with a slow, heavy gait and placed each foot specifically and silently. Her eyes did not show anger (Raudra); instead, they held a steady, unblinking focus that conveyed hunger without malice.

She switched instantly as her hands shot up in Mriga sheersha to mimic an animal's pricked ears. Her neck darted from side to side. She trembled, and her eyes widened as she sensed the shifting air.

She snapped back to the predator. Without a mudra of hesitation or a glance of pity, she sprang forward. Her hands slashed downward in a violent diagonal arc and tore through the space. She froze in the aftermath. Her chest heaved, but her face remained impassive without guilt or remorse.

'A tiger does not apologise to the deer before it mauls it.'

She transitioned into a posture of deceptively calm submission. She sat on her heels and suppressed her presence. She was a "tamed" beast. She accepted food as it was offered to her and bowed her head to her master's beck and call. Her eyes were lowered, and her movements were rigid and mechanical. Perfectly mimicking a creature that had learned to suppress its spirit for survival.

Then, Ganesh pushed the rhythm in a slow crescendo in both tempo and amplitude. A shift occurred. Parvathy froze. Her nostrils flared as a scent in the wind slithered in. The mechanical rhythm of her body stopped. Slowly, the Simhamukha mudra formed at her side, and once again trembled with repressed energy. She looked at her master, and her expression changed from submission to recognition.

The facade shattered. She rose slowly and shed her domestic posture. She paced the garden and marked her territory with heavy, sweeping steps. She lunged with a ferocious speed. In the end, the "taming" truly never took hold.

'To hunt is a predator's nature. No amount of domestication can erase that.'

Shiva understood the implication of his wife's expression.

Shiva approached his wife, who stood frozen in the rigid, unyielding stance. He circled her slowly. He searched her face for even a trace of Raudra (anger), but past the expression of bloodlust that symbolised the predator's gaze, he could only see blank apathy. He waved his hand before her eyes. She did not blink. His body recoiled as though impacted by an invisible weapon.

He reached out and gently touched her shoulder with an open palm. Immediately, he recoiled, burned by the coldness of her resignation. He retreated a few steps and used the Suchi mudra (pointing finger) to recall her past fury. He mimed her speaking up animatedly, with her chest heaving and her eyes flashing with rage. He clutched his own chest and smiled sadly at this memory. Her anger, after all, proved she still claimed him as her own.

He pointed to her now. He traced the flat line of her mouth. And finally, he shook his head violently. He looked at his own hands, still holding the faint shape of the "tiger" she described. And he immediately rejected it. He slowly unclenched his fingers and smoothed them until they were completely open and vulnerable.

'It pains me to realise that my behaviour has made you apathetic towards me. I realise that my actions have created this distance between us. But I want you to understand that I am changing.'

Parvathy stepped backwards slowly and deliberately created a physical gap that mirrored her emotional distance. She held her hands in the Sarpa Shirsha mudra (snake head) and enacted the shedding of old skin. Then, she revealed the "new" skin underneath, but then she struck forward with the same venomous bite. The creature remained a serpent regardless of its gleaming new appearance.

Next, she moved to a metaphor of elemental stubbornness to drive the point home. She cupped her hands to gather imaginary water and poured it over a clenched fist that represented a stone. She repeated this motion rhythmically to show the passage of aeons. Finally, she opened her hand to show that the stone was wet, but it had not become soft; it was still a hard and cold rock.

She turned her back on Shiva in Vimukha, refusing to witness a transformation she believed was impossible. She walked away in a straight, unwavering line. His moods might fluctuate like the tides, but her understanding of his nature was as fixed as the shore.

'People don't change'

Shiva stopped pleading. He understood that words were useless. In fact, even plain actions were meaningless for Parvathy. She needed to see something concrete.

He planted his feet wide in the warrior's stance and steadied himself for what must come. His gaze fell to his own chest. He clenched his right hand into a tight fist.

With a sharp breath out, he drove the fist deep into his own solar plexus.

Ganesh's hand stopped, and the music ceased altogether. Parvathy turned around, and her brows twitched in shock.

Shiva shot Ganesh an urgent look. In hesitation, Ganesh tapped the percussive instruments and resumed playing.

Shiva's body folded inward and curled around the blow. His face twisted in pain and disgust. His eyes rolled back. His left hand grasped his right wrist, and contrary to expectation, he did not pull it out but pushed it deeper, past flesh, past bone, into the very core of his being.

Then came the extraction. Slowly, he began to pull. He gripped the 'Rage' within him. He drew it out inch by inch as his whole body shook violently. At last, he held it before him. It was a jagged, pulsing ball of red energy, clutched in his fingers.

He looked at Parvathy. Then he looked at the Rage in his hand.

The climax was quiet. He did not wind up. He did not throw with force. He flicked his wrist and cast a vital essence of his power away, as if it were dust. He watched it fall away from Mount Kailasha. His face showed only the hollow stillness of a predator who had torn out his own fangs.

She wavered for a second. The sight of Shiva's self-inflicted wound pulled a gasp from her. She took a single, impulsive step forward. Her hand reached out in Alapadma (the blooming lotus) to stanch injury. She almost touched him, but the shadow of the past stopped her hand mid-air. She withdrew. Her face hardened from pity back into resigned clarity.

She lifted her left arm, holding the Sarpa Shirsha (the cobra hood) mudra high. With her right hand, she mimicked the act of defanging the serpent. She acted out the extraction and tossed the invisible fang aside just as Shiva had cast away his rage.

But then she pointed to the empty gum. She crouched low and brought her face close to her hand. Using her index finger, Suchi, she traced the gum line. She pulsed her hand rhythmically to show the blood pumping and the life force returning to the wound. Slowly, agonisingly, her index finger unfurled from the fist once more. She did not rush; she showed the sharp, white calcium of the new fang pushing through the skin, as long and as sharp as the one before.

She looked at Shiva with Shoka (sorrow). She snapped the "jaw" of her hand shut and struck the air. Her actions implied that the fang's regrowth was a biological inevitability.

'Your rage is like the fangs of a snake. It may be gone now, but it will come back again.'

Shiva stepped into her space and ignored the invisible wall she had built. He sank into Muzhu Mandi (the full sitting stance) at her feet and lowered himself beneath her gaze. He gently took her right hand, still held in the Sarpa Shirsha. He turned her palm upward and opened her fingers into Alapadma (the blooming lotus).

He placed his own left hand beneath hers to support it. With his right index finger (Suchi), he touched the centre of her open palm. He slowly raised the finger and mimicked the fang rising from the gum, just as she had shown him. He watched it grow. Her words were true: nature would return.

But the moment the finger was fully extended, his right hand snapped into Mushti (a tight fist). He gripped the invisible fang resting on her palm. Without flinching, he jerked his hand back with a violent, snapping motion, and mimed the tearing of the tooth from its root. He cast it aside into the void.

He did not stop.

He immediately returned his finger to her palm. He raised it again to show the fang regrowing. He ripped it out once more. He raised it a third time. He ripped it out a third time.

Shiva stood in a neutral stance and met Parvathy's gaze. With his right hand shaped like a swan's beak, he reached toward the air as if catching an invisible thread. The symbolic thread of her words about the unchanging nature. His wrist twisted sharply, and he snapped it apart.

He stepped forward. His left hand clenched into a fist. His right index finger became a chisel, striking the stone again and again. The stone cracked. It softened. It reshaped itself beneath the blows until it became something new, something transformed. He showed her that even the hardest substance could yield.

He raised two fingers and held them apart to mark a choice between two forces.

First, his body stiffened. A shudder ran through him. It wasn't a shudder of cowardice, but of awe before an endless void. His hand pushed outward, warding off a darkness he could not name. A tremor rippled from his shoulders down to his fingertips, and his body betrayed what his will could not.

Then, the tremor ceased. His hands softened and pressed together near his heart. His eyes half-closed. He swayed gently, like a flame sheltered from the wind. The rigidity melted away, replaced by a quiet warmth that flowed through his limbs.

He turned fully toward Parvathy. With a gentle hand, he traced the outline of her form in the empty air between them - her shoulders, her face, the curve of her presence.

Slowly, he covered his own eyes with both palms. When he drew them away, he looked at the space where she stood, but his eyes searched as if she were no longer there. He reached out, yet his fingers grasped at nothing. His breath quickened. His head turned left and right as he hunted for what had vanished. He pointed to the emptiness before him, then pressed his palm hard against his own chest - as if to say: without you, what remains here dies.

He sank to his knees. His hands fell to his chest, feeling the pulse beneath the skin - the rage, the nature she feared. He looked up at her with his expression stripped bare. From the air, he gathered something delicate - a garland of flowers - and pressed it against his heart. He held it there as if willing it to sink into his flesh. His body tensed once, as something wild stirred within, but the weight of his devotion pressed down and stilled the beast beneath.

At last, he extended his hands toward her, asking for a boon. His eyes lifted, glistening with devotion. In that silence, he did not offer a promise of change, but a plea to trust the chains he had forged with his own hands.

'You are wrong to say that people cannot change. People can change. In this world, there are only two forces powerful enough to motivate change: fear and love. I know you cannot believe my promises of change.'

'But I want you to know that in this entire cosmos, there is only one thing I fear the most. And that is losing you: the only thing I love most. So I implore you. If you cannot believe in my words, at least believe in my affection for you. Believe that it is strong enough to motivate a change in me for the better.'

Parvathy hesitated, but only for a moment. She reached forward and held her husband's extended hand.

Ganesh gradually faded out the music. Once there was nothing but silence and the chatter of the fauna inhabiting the garden, Ganesh picked up his instruments and walked home with a satisfied smile on his face.

"If there is one thing in the world I have no doubt about, it is my husband's devotion to his family," Parvathy expressed with a bittersweet smile.

The duo exchanged a meaningful gaze until Parvathy broke away with a faint blush on her cheeks. "It is nearly time to eat. I must go prepare it."

The afternoon waned, and the golden light of the sun eventually gave way to the cool blues of twilight. The euphoria of the dance settled into a calm, domestic routine, though the air remained charged with the residue of high emotion.

Lunch was quiet. Without Murugan's chatter to fill the air, the silence sat heavy between them. The only break came from Ganesh, who hummed happily between mouthfuls and scraped his leaf clean enthusiastically.

Midway through their meal, Shiva paused. "I was hoping that you could extend the same benefit of the doubt towards our guest," he said to his wife.

Parvathy quirked a brow. "Are you referring to Murugan's Guru?"

Shiva nodded.

"I don't know him," Parvathy said sharply. "Why should I care about his struggles? One look is enough to see he isn't a good man. He carries too much blood on his hands." She set her food down, her appetite gone. "Every time Murugan goes to him, I worry. I worry he's turning our son into..."

"Of the many things my son has inherited from me, rage is amongst them," Shiva completed his wife's thoughts. "There is no denying it. You can either suppress it or learn to harness it safely and not let it take control of your life. His Guru is teaching Murugan how to do the latter. I know that you are following your son's learning and growth, both of which have shown appreciable progression. Murugan's Guru has done well to raise our boy."

Parvathy opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. It would have been a lie to say otherwise. She chewed her lip, frustration evident in the tight set of her jaw.

"I believe that his accomplishment warrants a reward," Shiva hinted. "To that end, if you could extend the leniency you have shown me to the man as well. It would be a very apt reward."

Parvathy let out a sigh and asked, "What do you wish that I do?"

Shiva shrugged his shoulders and responded, "Give him the benefit of the doubt."

"What exactly does that mean?" Parvathy said with a frustrated snap.

"I don't know," Shiva said. "Think about it."

"Speaking of," Ganesh cut in and leaned forward with genuine curiosity. "Where did Kratos go?"

The parents squinted their eyes as their gaze looked into the distance. Parvathy scoffed and let out a chuckle in schadenfreude, "He's definitely having one hell of an adventure."