The Devourers

by Indra Das

spliffs.

ektara.

lycanthrope

rakshasa,

mela.

Anubis-faced

Úlfhéðinn

kveldulf,

Fenrir.

Sometimes intimacy is the only way real magic works.”

Leave, if you think the only way to achieve intimacy is dry custom, the exchange of facts and labels, names and professions. Intimacy lies in the body and the soul, in scent, in touch and taste and sound. A man whose name you don’t know can tell you a tale to move you to tears, just by

filling and emptying his lungs, by moving his tongue and lips, his fingers. Even after, you might never know him.”

felt like you shared a bit of lost time with me, shared the memories of something that can’t—shouldn’t—exist, like you had it hidden under that kurta of yours and just, I don’t know, gave it to me.”

Lahore,

Indus.

fardels

Mumtazabad,

Shah Jahan’s

caravan...

salwars

purdah.

“A dead man taught me, after I ate him, just as the Christ taught his disciples the love of their God after they ate him.”

Yamuna,

chir batti

Mumtaz Mahal,

badawi

But it is always the strange intimacies of humans, differently expressed yet prevalent across all their empires and lands, observed in the darkest hours of night, that stick with me and stir my appetites in unexpected ways.

anima.

kveldulf

Plassey.

Sundarbans?”

momos

The inverse of Romeo and Juliet: two families so eager to be one that the star-crossed lovers can’t stand it anymore. He especially enjoys that last comparison, laughing as I tell him about my farcical tragedy.

djinns,

glamouring

charbaghs

faqirs?”

ifreets,

ghuls,

Theissians,

Sweet and musk, like frankincense and myrrh; heavy and pungent, like the juice of living things, blood and piss, sweat and spit; rancid and fecund, like waste, shit, and earth.

chital.

Durga Puja.

pandals.

D...

Mahishasura,

syncretism

learned the habit of gin and tonics from British colonials who invented the drink, with its cocktail of quinine and alcohol to ward off malaria.

Vidyasagar Setu,

geyser,