The statue was heavy and large; weighing not less than ten kilograms, it was bigger than the large stone slabs used to grind turmeric. The goddess’s body was covered with a layer of vermilion two fingers thick. With her, there were four minor deities, and a little distance away, on the right-hand side of the platform, there was a pile of several small broken clay elephants and horses. If the goddess is offered clay elephants or horses she cures children from various kinds of ailments. Sometimes, even old people can be cured through such offerings. The goddess’s stable was thus never short of such animals. However, she was not worshipped every day—ordinarily, she lay covered in leaves and dirt. Only when there was a wedding, when a child-wife attained puberty and went to join her husband, when somebody fell sick or someone wanted the deity to intercede for him or her, did worship at the goddess’s shrine begin in earnest. When cholera broke out in the village, there was worship on a grand scale.

The goddess did not enjoy a regular monthly income, the way lowly clerks do. People gathered at her shrine only in times of danger and distress, as they do at the doors of doctors and lawyers. On such occasions her shrine sprang to life, and ceremonial pujas were financed by contributions from the villagers.

The goddess was very powerful, and thanks to her protection the villagers came to no harm, although once in a while she would lose her temper and unleash her fury. But if the offerings were to her satisfaction, she would relent, and only a hundred villagers would die—the rest would be spared. Dear reader, you are an educated person. You might laugh and say, invoking modern science, “Why pray to the goddess at all? If you are sick, you should take medicine.” For our part, although we cannot say how many, or which, barren ladies in the village the goddess has blessed with children, we nevertheless swear by the holy Nirmalya and declare that all women who now have children were most certainly barren before their marriages.

We have already referred to the path which ran past the goddess’s shrine down to Asura Pond. It was used mostly by the village women. Every day, along this path, came a woman in her thirties, carrying a pitcher of water. She would stop before the goddess, make obeisance, sweep and wash the place of worship, and water the tree. Every evening, she would light a lamp there and murmur a prayer. The villagers had seen her do this for the last six months. No one knew her thoughts or what she prayed for; she was very shy and kept her face modestly covered with the end of her sari. She never mixed with anyone, she talked to no one.

Every afternoon the young cowherds of the village played near the goddess’s seat, leaving their cows to graze in the fields.

One afternoon, they suddenly stopped; clutching their staves, and stood huddled around the goddess. Ten to fifteen villagers joined them out of curiosity. Why were there offerings to the goddess when there had been no puja? She wore a fresh layer of turmeric paste and scattered around her were hibiscus flowers, garlands of satbarga flowers, and khai and ukhuda as food offerings.

The goddess’s ceremonial puja, her ritual worship, was always a major event in the village. Contributions were raised, drums were beaten, and all the villagers assembled in the evening for that purpose. Private prayers were offered in the same manner.

But no one had heard the drums yesterday, nor had there been puja in the evening. Where then did all these offerings come from? One of the cowherds suddenly cried out, “What’s this, what’s this?” Everyone rushed towards him and saw a large hole some three arm-lengths from the platform on which the goddess sat. It was large enough to hold a man.

In no time, the news spread throughout the village, and everyone came running. Mangaraj, too, lost no time getting there.

After much discussion it was decided that the goddess had appeared in the dead of the previous night to help a devotee in distress, and that the hole was made by the tiger she rode. Mangaraj proclaimed, “The tiger still seems to be there, inside the hole.” This made the villagers flee. Mangaraj then glanced meaning-fully at Rama, and walked away.