Stories of Jivavarta: Kekala of Mihika Nagari

Since childhood, Kekala had been a stranger to her own desires. She wanted to rest when the mist thickened, but she had to dance. She wanted to forget the sound of the drums, but she had to move to their rhythm.

The drums began before dusk. They always did, from the heart of the city, where the stone temple stood like a scar that never faded.

The drumbeat was not music, but a law -- an invisible decree that said: You will dance, no matter what. For it was known that as long as the drums played and the Alohitas danced, the goddess Varavani would remain asleep. And sleep she must, because if she wakes, she will carry the city back to the depth of the sea. Kekala had heard this since childhood. She no longer knew whether it was faith, or fear of Mihika's powerful lord Akatraka.

Kekala rose from her mat, tied violet silk around her body, and painted her eyes with ash and shimmer. Her reflection looked older than her years. A small lamp flickered beside her, its smoke rising and filling her lungs.

A thick, heavy mist covered the streets outside. Akatraka’s men were already arranging the trade. The sorrowful trade, they called it -- as if giving sorrow a name could make it sacred. The traders had come from across the sea, from far off lands all across Jivavarta. They carried gold coins, spices, and hunger in their eyes. No other city would sell them what they wanted most.

Kekala walked towards the temple, passing by the stone figures of women carved into the walls, their faces calm, their eyes shut. She sometimes envied them for that silence. She entered the temple's halls as the drumbeats rolled, took a bow, and started dancing. She danced until her breath became part of the smoke, until the drums blended with her heartbeat. The nobles watched. The traders watched. The goddess, they said, slept deeper with every step she took.

Later, when the trade began, Kekala stood by the temple gate. The air was heavy with incense and sea mist. The babies were brought out, wrapped in thin cloth, and offered like a sacrifice. Babies with sacred Mihika lords’ bloodlines were spared. The rest were not.

She held her own child close. He was small, with eyes wide like hers. She had hidden him for weeks, hoping the city would forget. But Mihika Nagari forgets nothing. The lords found out. Another dancer, whose baby had been taken, had told on her. “My boy has been taken from me. Why should you get to raise yours?” When life turns cruel, empathy hardens into resentment, and we forgive everything except someone having what we don't.

A trader approached her, smelling of smoke and sweat. He held a pouch of karshika coins before her. She took the pouch -- heavy, cold, and meaningless, and handed over her boy. The baby made no sound, but his eyes stayed open, as if he were already looking at another world. Kekala wanted to weep but found she had no tears left. She had danced too long, prayed too often. The goddess, they said, demanded no blood, only obedience. But Kekala knew the truth, that every coin earned in Mihika Nagari was in exchange for something living.

The trader left, and in time so did the others. Kekala sat on the steps of the temple, the faint glow of Mihika Weed behind her. The mist grew colder, and she thought of her son, somewhere beyond the mist, perhaps alive, perhaps not.

She moved her hand across the stone of Varavani and whispered a prayer,

"But one day the goddess will rise and glare,
And the city will sink, as if never there."

In that moment, she realized that the goddess was only waiting for someone who would dare to stop moving. So, she rose, and started dancing again. Soon, the drums stopped, but she did not.

Jivavarta is a fictional land created by Shon Mehta, where epic tales of power, survival, and social upheaval unfold, as seen in her novels The Timingila and Lair of the Monster, along with many other stories and parables set in this richly imagined world.