Free The Hero's Walk by Anita Rau Badami

living child Ammayya produced.
    The day of his birth was cautiously celebrated. He was deprived of the traditionally grand ceremonies that heralded the arrival of a first son because his parents were afraid of inviting the evil eye along with the other guests. One could not be too careful after the loss of so many infants.
    Janardhana Acharye, the family priest, was summoned immediately, and he sat hunched over the infant’s birth charts, alternately consulting the panchanga (which he wrote himself and sold for fifty paise a copy), and doing complicated calculations on a piece of paper. He hated being dragged out of bed so late at night, especially as he had been engaged in foreplay with his coy but excited wife, who drove him wild with her mixture of reluctance and eagerness. But one did not refuse summons from old and respected clients like Narasimha Rao of Big House. Neither did he have the guts to tell the family that Sripathi had nothing extraordinary in his future: no fame, no name, not even a modest fortune. Why spoil things forthem? This was their first living child after all, and a son at that. Why tell them that by his sixteenth birthday, the child would be fatherless, and that later in life he would see the death of his own child as well? Could anyone alter the future that Lord Brahma had written on the infant’s forehead the minute he emerged from his mother’s womb? Then what use to worry about it? It was a long time away, and Narasimha would be dead by then. No need to worry about it now and ruin his eyes looking for planetary loopholes through which to pull out threads of hope. Besides, if he made a bad horoscope, the family would ask him to perform rituals to counteract the mischief of the gods, and that would take all of the night and the next day as well, and Janardhana Acharye really wanted to return to his bed and to his waiting wife.
    So he wiped his sweating bare chest with his shalya, used the same cloth to sponge out his underarms (which smelled as if someone had boiled onions there, a stench that always heralded his arrival), and said to Narasimha Rao, who paced impatiently as if he was in a courtroom debating a case, “The boy has favourable stars shining on him. He will always be one step ahead of life and one step behind death. So not to worry-murry. Other details not so important; I will inform you later. After one month, bring him to the temple for a special puja that will clear any lingering shani kata circling his future. Until then do not dress him in red clothes—not a good colour for this boy. That’s all.” Then the Acharye packed away his almanac, and with it disappeared his air of authority. He shuffled his feet and became ingratiating—a signal for his clients to pay him for his services. The priest found it demeaning to ask for money himself and even more humiliating to haggle for greater than the amount he had received. After all, he was a Brahmin, not a trader-caste fellow who had no shame asking for this and that.
    Narasimha and Ammayya had high hopes for their first child. They gave him the grandest name they could think of, an entireorchestra of a name: Toturpuram Narasimha Thimmappa Sripathi Rao. Deep drum beats, airy flute notes, the high twang of a sitar. It was a name that carried the full weight of Sripathi’s village, his ancestors, his immediate family and all his parents’ ambitions. He, as first son of a first son of a first son, had a serious obligation to grow into his marvellous name. Ammayya fed him fat balls of fresh buffalo butter, basmati rice, almonds in milk. His grandmother told him gallant tales of heroism and cunning and wit and honour; of Arjuna the great archer; of King Harishchandra, whose honesty shook even the heavens; of Bhishma of the terrible oath; and of Bhageerathi, who persuaded wild and whimsical Ganga to flow down as a river and wash over the ashes of his thousand brothers. At the end of every story, she would