The morning began with the scent of rain drying on hospital glass—a soft, metallic aroma that lingered in every corridor. In the pale blue light that passed through the window near Preeti's bed, fleeting gold made the world seem merciful and new. Yet beneath her breasts, where Vaikarthana—Karna reborn—slept, Preeti felt the familiar twitch of anxiety, the low ache of responsibility pressing harder than any wound.
She watched his closed eyelids, their delicate veins and long lashes, and every now and then she traced the pale lines on his chest with a fingertip. Out there, beyond disinfectant and monitors, real Chennai awaited—hungry with questions and the appetite for stories. This day, the first day her son would breathe the air of the city, arrived with a sense of deliverance and dread. She was grateful, and she was terrified.
When nurse Manisha entered, cheerful and brisk, Preeti's stomach knotted. "Madam—today you're going home! Discharge after breakfast. Doctor is coming for rounds." There was joy in her voice, but her eyes lingered as always on the child's marks, and in her tone Preeti heard the city's curiosity, wrapped as concern.
It was Karna—Vaikarthana—who felt the tension deepest. Though his muscles were tiny and his bones soft, the spirit inside him sharpened at every emotional ripple in the room. He sensed the hush whenever someone traced his birthmarks. He noted the way grownups' voices dropped to half-whispers with his mother. He recognized the protective heat in Preeti's arms as something older than language, older even than the city itself.
Dr. Rose arrived after sunrise, her white coat trailing, and set about her checks—heartbeat, reflexes, the strange pale marks that didn't fade. She was a practical woman, but as she ran her stethoscope carefully over Vaikarthana's chest, for one moment she fiddled gently with a pendant under her collar: a battered copper sun, old and smooth. Perhaps, Karna thought in the drifting night between unlived memories, she had once been a devotee of Surya too.
"He is healthy and alert. No sign of infection. Everything else—ignore what people say, Preeti. Superstition will always chase a newborn with scars."
Preeti's smile was tight, grateful but weary. "Thank you, Doctor." In her voice: But what if he is more than superstition? What if he is myth, reborn in my arms?
The doctor hesitated. "If there is probing, if you feel…unsafe, call me. Directly. Right to my mobile." She pressed a number in Preeti's palm—hand to hand, a signal that, for now, women must protect women, against a world that was never simple, or safe, or kind to the different.
Smrithy's entrance was as much a storm as the departing monsoon. She arrived with flour on her cheek, sari half-damp from the bus, and a universe of noise. "Oho! Our hero's going home! Did the nurses sign over his birth certificate to Mom-of-the-Year yet? Is he still holding court with those ancient eyes?" She swooped to examine him, then paused, her brashness softening in the face of the baby's lingering gaze.
They packed with ritual: shirts and shawls, diapers and bottles, books borrowed and not returned. Preeti kept her silence amidst Smrithy's banter, listening for the smallest wrong—one more doctor asking too many questions, one more nurse looking twice at the marks, one more glance at the discharge form.
At the hospital exit, the world was a cyclone of voices: porters, grandmothers, street vendors, and above them all, the endless monsoon sky. Preeti balanced her newborn, clutching bag and certificate, while Smrithy flagged a taxi. Their movements felt epic, like generals preparing to cross a contested border.
Yet in the swirl of real and imagined danger, Karna's awareness moved like fog beneath the events—honing in on the moment, soaking the street's smells into his memory: roasting chana from a roadside cart, oxidized metal from a passing lorry, the petrichor rising in the monsoon-wet mud.
The taxi—an ancient Ambassador painted faded yellow—was a fishbowl for their transition. In the cracked back seat, Preeti pressed her son to her chest, clinging to the motion of the city outside. Chennai unfolded, cart by cart and temple by temple, from Marina Beach's salt-tinged dawn to the narrow alleys of Alwarpet where the world compacted into woven prayer mats and Bajaj scooters.
Traffic shimmered and thumped. Rickshaws darted between buses, bicyclists rang their bells, an old man in a cream Nehru vest tottered across traffic holding a bundle of jasmine so large it hid all but his bare toes. On every corner, color burst from painted walls—Krishna blue, Ganesha orange, peacock green—and on doorsteps women knelt over bright kolam patterns, swept anew despite the rain.
"See?" Smrithy said. "Only real heroes survive both hospital discharge and Chennai's morning mess. You're both officially warriors now."
Preeti laughed, anxiety breaking just enough to let pride rise. For a moment, she forgot the marks, the watchers; there was only city and sun and her own fierce heart.
Karna, in his cocoon of new flesh, tried to order every sound—the clang of tuk-tuks, the high trill of a goat from behind a gate, the municipal water truck sloshing, the staccato rapid-fire Tamil as two flower sellers fought over deliveries. The newborn mind absorbed, filed, recalled hints of kingdoms and calamity buried somewhere beneath the noise.
Their home was a second-floor room above "Padmanabhan Surgical," a storefront painted the yellow of marigolds, its window displays filled with bandages and surgical tape. The stairwell up to their flat was damp and shadowy, wrapping narrow in the corners, pungent with drying coriander and soap from neighbors' morning chores.
At the door, Preeti stopped to touch the Ganesha statue, as she had every day before her life was rewritten. She whispered a prayer under her breath—"For strength, for patience, for peace."
Inside, their world was a maze of softness and struggle: a blue sofa patched with old bedsheets, a washing-line heavy with monsoon-wet baby clothes, a battered bookshelf with everything from Marx to Krishna Devaraya, mugs that didn't match, and a fridge humming with hopeful complaint.
She set her baby down for the first time at home, on a quilt embroidered by her grandmother. The flat held its breath as if welcoming a small god. Memories gathered in the shadows: childhood afternoons with her aunties peeling onions, nights spent on the terrace watching bats whirl in the dusk, the humming reassurance of belonging even when the world never stopped asking questions.
Neighbors descended as predictably as crows at the market:
Saroja aunty, pudgy and chatty, with a steel tiffin of sweets and ten thousand inquiries; Mani from upstairs, clutching a plastic cricket bat and hopeful for a first peek; Rajan Anna, always with wisecracks, who handed her a banana leaf bundle ("for immunity—doctor's order, you check!").
Each visitor brought blessings and worries:
Saroja paused at the sight of the marks on Vaikarthana's chest. "Ayyoh, no drishti? Don't worry, my cousin's boy had the same. Rub a little turmeric water, say Hanuman Chalisa, and nobody will steal his soul."
Mani just grinned, tugging at his own ears and giggling when he spotted the notched earlobes.
Rajan Anna examined the child's gaze with the solemnity of a pundit, then declared, "Mark my words, Preeti—this one's meant for bigger wars. Don't waste money on Bournvita, start investing in armory!"
The traffic of gifts, advice, and old-woman prasad was relentless, but Preeti faced it all with practiced grace. She was learning—already—that a mother's armor must be smiles and patience, sharper and harder than any sword.
Yet through it all, she watched the windows. From the street below, parked beneath the tamarind tree, the grey-suited watcher had returned, his phone pressed to his ear as he scanned the building. Preeti's heart hammered, a rhythm Karna echoed in the cradle.
On the roof above, pigeons clattered, city noises blurred. Inside, the baby's eyes opened wider, as if daring fate itself to come closer.
Afternoon crept in with heavy warmth. Smrithy returned, arms heavy with groceries, announcing her entrance with a clatter of bangles.
"Did you nap at all? Or did Saroja and the coconut brigade keep you busy?" she asked, collapsing onto the patched sofa and peeling a banana as easily as a warrior drawing a knife.
"I slept," Preeti lied, smiling.
"Don't let them tell stories about those marks. People see one odd thing and they invent epics."
Preeti shook her head. "They'd rather gossip than cook. Let them. He's mine, not theirs."
Smrithy's tone changed. "You're not alone, idiot. If anything happens—if anyone says anything hateful—tell me. Or, better, let me tell them to their face."
They leaned together in companionable silence, listening to the city's distant churn. Karna, turning his head toward the two, felt a vague warmth he recognized as the thing that had kept him alive through lifetimes: the loyalty between comrades, the love between allies.
Evening painted the room in the gold of survival:
Preeti nursed her son by the window, singing snatches of lullabies and film songs. Smrithy hummed along, correcting lines, improvising verses, turning pain into theatre.
Chennai shifted in the dusk—temple bells clanged somewhere far-off, the clangor of the latest procession rolling down side streets, commuters whistling for autos, the city's hum pressed against their thin walls.
On the roof, a black cat watched the world with consequence. Pigeons scattered and reformed. Two bats sailed in looping, writhing patterns across the sky, tracing ancient runes in the purple light.
Downstairs, voices rose and faded:
Two women bickering about ration rice deliveries.
A child crying over a stolen sweet.
The steady, continuous murmur of television dialogue drifting through open windows.
For the first time since the hospital, Preeti allowed herself a moment to rest—cradling Vaikarthana, rocking him in the old steel chair, eyes closed against the torrent of questions she couldn't answer.
She spoke to her son in a whisper: "We are here, little one. Let the world do its worst."
Karna, in the nest of arms and voice, drifted close to sleep. Yet in the borders between waking and dreams, he saw flickers of memory:
A river running deep under noon sun, the clangor of chariot wheels, a woman's face lost in shadow, the glint of gold breaking on a battlefield.
You must remember, but you must survive.
Night fell hard and sudden, as monsoon nights do. With every window now a warped mirror, Preeti paced the flat, baby on hip, checking once—twice—for the shape of a man in the street below.
No sign.
But rumors grew, and eyes gathered in the dark:
A neighbor's light burned late as if waiting for a sign.
Saroja's TV was now tuned to an astrologer, reciting omens for "those born with sacred marks."
In the alley, a stray dog barked thrice before falling silent, and somewhere deeper in the city, thunder grumbled a final warning.
In her mind, Preeti replayed her professor's words from years before:
"Take care of stories, and stories will take care of you. But beware: not all those who ask are meant to know."
She set up the crib as close to her bed as possible, lit a small lamp in the home-shrine—a single flame flickering against the idol of Lakshmi—and offered a small prayer not to a god, but to the unnamed ancestors who, like her, had wandered the world with a child and a fear they could not share.
Later, as the city slept uneasily, the watcher came closer. The grey suit entered the shadow of the stairwell, checked his phone, sent a text:
"The child is here. No abnormal activity. Mother cautious but not scared off."
He paused, looking at the flicker of light inside the flat.
His own orders were clear: observe, record, intervene if necessary. Yet the feeling in his chest was not just professional. It was as if some old tale—some yuga-old duty—had woven itself around this mother and child, and to interfere without cause would be to offend not just them but the order of things itself.
He retreated, every step watched not by men, but by the eyes of moonlight and the silent pigeons on the roof.
Inside, Preeti swaddled her son, humming him to sleep. The baby's eyes, ageless and black, caught a brief glint of the pageant moon, and in that moment Preeti could have sworn he smiled.
Midnight passed in rain again—soft, blessing, relentless. The house was still but for the drip of water from the balcony and the soft click of a ceiling fan spinning away the last of the day's heat.
In her dreams, Preeti saw a river in darkness, a child set afloat in a woven basket.
She woke once, sweating, and checked on her son. The birthmarks on his chest glowed pale silver in the moonlight, as if freshly inscribed by an unseen hand.
She pressed her forehead to his, and for a moment it seemed that an entire world lay balanced in that silent touch:
Her hopes, her wounds, the myth she carried unknowingly forward in every heartbeat.
Karna—Vaikarthana—dreamed of fire but felt only warmth, the safety of arms that would shield him from all the world's axes and arrows.
Dawn quivered on the city's rim; new day, new rumors, new dangers.
On the other side of Chennai, in a dusty office lined with books and fading calendars, the watcher filed his report.
"We are not the first to see it, nor will we be the last. Sometimes, destiny marks its own guardians long before the world learns to take notice."
He tucked the file away and, before leaving, turned an old brass lamp twice for luck.
Somewhere in the middle of the city, as the roosters crowed and the sky broke open, Preeti woke to her new world—a world remade by a child whose marks would shape the fate of more than just his mother, or her generation, or even this single Yuga.
And Vaikarthana opened his eyes, finding in the blur of morning the shape of a future burning, even as it was besieged.