Chapter 335. A Pilgrimage to the Heart of Bharat
India—a sprawling, sweltering tapestry of humanity, woven together by the threads of a thousand ancient faiths. It is a land that breathes through the lungs of over a billion souls, making it the second most populous nation on Earth. Here, the divine is not a distant concept but a living presence; nearly every inhabitant carries a spark of deep, unyielding devotion that colors their daily existence.
Yet, for all its spiritual grandeur, India is equally famed for customs that strike the uninitiated as startlingly primal. Chief among these is the age-old practice of the "left-hand ritual." To the wandering foreigner, the dichotomy is stark: the left hand is reserved for the grim necessities of the latrine, while the right is consecrated for the act of nourishment. In the bustling markets and humble homes, cutlery is a rarity; the people prefer the tactile intimacy of eating with their bare fingers.
This stark reality is born from the jagged divide between the opulent few and the struggling masses. For the millions trapped in the clutches of poverty, luxury items like toilet paper are as out of reach as the stars themselves, leaving them to rely on the ancient ways of water and hand. The wealthy, ensconced in their marble villas and air-conditioned towers, naturally distance themselves from such earthy struggles, creating two worlds existing within a single border.
It was into this vibrant, chaotic crucible that Ajak, Gilgamesh, and Thena descended. Having navigated the sterile, bureaucratic corridors of an Australian airport, they finally touched down in the heart of India.
The flight had been a grueling twelve-hour odyssey across the clouds. By the time the wheels kissed the tarmac and they stepped out into the humid air, the sun had long since surrendered to the velvet embrace of night.
Gilgamesh glanced down at his wrist, the glass of his watch reflecting the dim terminal lights. The hands pointed stubbornly to two in the afternoon. It was a lingering ghost of Australian time, a reminder of the vast distance they had crossed. To find his bearings in this new meridian, his eyes swept the cavernous hall of the airport until they landed on a massive wall clock. The golden hands ticked toward 21:30. Night had truly fallen.
"Ajak, what's the play?" Gilgamesh asked, turning toward the woman who had led them for millennia. His voice was steady, lacking even a hint of the jet lag that would have withered a mortal man. "Do we hunt for Kingo the moment we clear these gates, or do we find a bed for the night first?"
A normal traveler would have been a shell of themselves after half a day in the sky, but these three were no children of the earth. They were Eternals, their bodies forged in the celestial forges, immune to the petty exhaustion of the flesh. Thena, standing beside Gilgamesh, seemed more alive than she had in centuries. The shadow of Mahd Wy'ry had long kept her entombed in the silence of the Australian outback; now, the sights and sounds of civilization acted like a tonic, her eyes wide with a childlike, shimmering wonder.
Ajak paused, her gaze distant as if weighing the threads of the future. "Let us find a sanctuary for the night," she decided softly. "We shall seek out Kingo when the sun rises."
Neither Gilgamesh nor Thena offered a word of protest. They moved through the terminal with a grace that turned heads and slipped out into the night to find a nearby hotel. Ajak handled the expenses with the practiced ease of one who had spent centuries accumulating the wealth of empires; her years in America had left her with accounts deep enough to buy and sell the very street they walked upon.
Once their meager belongings were settled into their rooms, a restless energy took hold of Gilgamesh and Thena. The desert had been their cage, and the call of the Indian night was too seductive to ignore. Thena, in particular, was mesmerized by the exotic pulse of the city—the scents, the colors, the sheer, vibrant life of it all. Gilgamesh sent a quick word to Ajak, and the two warriors descended into the streets.
Ajak did not move to stay them. She knew the rhythm of her kin. Ikaris was unlikely to strike so soon after their arrival, and there was no sense in tethering them to her side. Besides, she required the solitude of the digital age. Kingo was no longer a hidden shadow; he was a god of the silver screen, a public icon. She intended to scour the internet for his every movement, knowing that to reach a star of his magnitude, one had to bypass a small army of handlers and security.
As Gilgamesh and Thena stepped out of the hotel lobby, the atmosphere hit them like a physical wave. The night was a riot of neon and shadow. Signboards for eateries, silk shops, and cinemas glowed in a kaleidoscope of hues. People clad in saris of burning orange and tunics of deep indigo flowed through the streets like a river of silk.
"Gilgamesh, look! We must try that!" Thena exclaimed, her hand darting out to point toward a street vendor whose cart was surrounded by a small, hungry crowd.
"Lead the way," Gilgamesh chuckled, though as they drew closer, his warrior's senses signaled a different kind of alarm. It wasn't a threat to his life, but perhaps to his palate.
The vendor was a man with skin the color of toasted teak, his hands moving with the blurred speed of a magician. On a large, shimmering metal tray sat heaps of golden, hollow spheres, deep-fried to a brittle crisp. Beside them stood battered bowls filled with dark liquids and mysterious pastes. A pungent aroma hung over the stall—a sharp, stinging cloud of exotic spices mingled with a faint, unmistakable scent of the gutters.
Gilgamesh wrinkled his nose, wondering why the delicacies smelled faintly of the city's plumbing, but Thena was already lost in translation, using animated gestures to communicate with the man.
The vendor, a veteran of the airport-adjacent trade, needed no words. He plucked several of the hollow balls—pani puri—and nested them in a recycled paper pouch. With a practiced thrust of his thumb, he cracked a hole in the top of each shell, stuffed them with a mash of spiced potatoes, and submerged them in a ladle of the murky, pungent sauce.
Gilgamesh handed over a few crumpled rupees—currency Ajak had wisely exchanged earlier—and accepted the offering. He took a bite with the caution of a man defusing a bomb. The shell shattered with a satisfying crunch, releasing a flood of cold, spicy liquid that danced across his tongue. It was a symphony of flavors, yet that lingering, earthy scent remained. He tried not to dwell on the source of the water. Thena, however, was undeterred, devouring the snacks with a joyous ferocity before dragging him deeper into the labyrinth of the night.
They moved through the city like ghosts of a forgotten age, reveling in the chaos. But as the moon climbed higher and they turned back toward their hotel, they were about to encounter a side of India that was far less welcoming than a street vendor's cart.
--------
You can read up to 200+ advanced chapters and support me at patreon.com/raaaaven
Daily +2 chapters updates