“Let the mantle remain where none can wear it—only protect it.”
The realms were healed.
The Archive dissolved.
The river carried the memory of a man who never ruled, yet led all.
The gods gathered—
Not in judgment.
In wonder.
They had seen miracles before.
But never one born from humility.
The Assembly of Devas had not met in full since the Age of the Churning.
They gathered now, not atop Mount Meru, but beside the river.
No celestial court.
No thunder.
Just water.
And silence.
And that—
was new.
Vayu was first to kneel.
“He carried my breath farther than I ever dared.”
Agni burned low, his flames flickering blue.
“And gave my fire back to the people, not the priests.”
Saraswati traced her fingers across the surface.
“He wrote no hymns.
But the people now speak him in meter.”
Indra stood.
Uncrowned.
Uneasy.
“He refused the throne.”
Parvati stood beside him.
“And in doing so… earned one beyond reach.”
“But he was mortal,” Indra said tightly.
Brahma’s voice came from nowhere and everywhere:
“So was every story before it was told.”
And none of them—not even the oldest—could name a moment
when they had been followed freely
by those who remembered them without fear.
The river shimmered.
A ripple, not a wave.
It spelled a single word across its surface:
“Observe.”
And so they did.
The gods, in full, sat down beside mortals.
Not above.
Not before.
Beside.
They listened.
To fishermen recalling the day the rains paused for their nets.
To a teacher reading a poem inspired by a scarf on the wind.
To a child drawing a red-scarfed figure leaping between rooftops.
“There’s your hymn,” Saraswati whispered.
Indra turned from the river.
Removed his crown.
Let it dissolve into air.
“Let the crown remain
where none can wear it.
Only protect it.”
They searched for the next Vanara.
Of course they did.
Temples whispered.
Scribes speculated.
Leaders debated.
Who would carry the legacy?
Vānaprakāśa was found beneath a banyan tree near Varanasi.
Still gleaming.
Still warm.
Untouched.
It hummed when approached—
Not with threat.
With… consideration.
Many tried.
A monk who chanted in perfect breath.
A soldier with dreams of light and wind.
A girl who had seen the river whisper.
Each reached.
Each was met with the same answer:
Silence.
Not rejection.
Not pain.
Just… not yet.
Rishabh came and sat beside it.
He didn’t try to lift the staff.
“He didn’t leave it for a warrior,” he said.
“He left it for a moment.
When one of us would need to remember more than we feared.”
The weeks passed.
Vānaprakāśa was never claimed.
But it was kept.
Carried by different hands, respectfully.
Not as a relic.
Not as a prize.
At a school in Banaras, it sat near the blackboard.
At a refugee camp in Odisha, on a shelf near ration cards.
At a silent vigil in Assam, wrapped in a red scarf.
A reporter once asked Megha:
“Who’s the next Vanara Man?”
She smiled.
“There isn’t one.
The Vanara is not a person now.
It’s a question.”
And across the land, answers bloomed.
In quiet courage.
In remembered names.
In hands that helped.
In children who asked.
In words that whispered:
“I remember.”
Vānaprakāśa still waits.
But the mantle?
It never will again.
Years passed.
The banyan tree still stood.
Its roots grew deeper.
Twisting.
Holding more than just earth.
Some said it whispered at dawn.
Some said its shadow always faced east.
Those who knew never claimed anything.
They simply returned.
Rishabh came first.
Older.
Softer.
Still carrying verses—
But with fewer regrets.
He bowed to the tree.
Sat beside the staff.
Megha arrived.
Silver in her hair.
Scrolls replaced by a torn notebook.
She didn’t bow.
She leaned back and sighed.
“He’d say we overcomplicated everything.”
“He wasn’t wrong,” Rishabh said.
Akshay rolled up on an old electric bike.
Set a small speaker down.
From it came the sound of the city—
Train horns, temple bells, vendors shouting.
“I figured he’d want to know what it sounds like when it all works.”
Adira appeared.
No wings.
No flare.
Just light in human shape.
“I came because I remembered.”
No one asked how she stayed unchanged.
They sat in a circle.
No words at first.
Just presence.
Then Megha asked:
“Do you think he’s still listening?”
“No,” Rishabh said.
“I think he’s remembering.”
They laughed.
And for a moment, it felt like he was there—
Not beside them,
but between them.
The leaves rustled.
And Vānaprakāśa hummed.
Not to be claimed.
Not to be lifted.
Just to say:
“Still here.”
The girl who once sat at the river was grown now.
She had a child.
They sat together in a modest home near Varanasi.
The river flowed outside.
Steady.
Humming.
“Maa, is the river magic?” the child asked.
She laughed.
“No, beta.
The river isn’t magic.
It’s memory.”
“But rivers don’t remember things.”
“Only the good ones do.”
“You said a man lived in it.”
“Some say that.”
“Do you believe it?”
She paused.
Smiled.
“I believe he was real.
Even if the stories changed.”
“What did he do?”
“He helped.
Sometimes by flying.
Sometimes just by listening.”
“Was he a god?”
“No.
He was something harder.”
“What’s harder than a god?”
“Being kind…
when no one knows your name.”
Outside, the river shimmered.
And for a heartbeat, across its surface,
a golden glint passed—
A flicker.
A presence.
A name carried not in thunder, but in breath:
“Vanara.”
The river was quiet.
No children.
No priests.
No prayers.
Just Lanka.
The last general.
The former traitor.
The man Makardvach had spared.
He knelt.
No armor.
No horns.
Only hands that still trembled from memory.
“I never said it,” he whispered.
The river rippled.
No judgment.
Just listening.
“I believed fear made order.
I was wrong.”
“You trusted me.
And I failed you.”
“But I remember.
And I tell others.
Because of you.”
He bowed low.
Pressed his forehead to the water.
Waited.
And then—
A breeze.
Soft.
Deliberate.
It brushed his cheek.
In the ripples, a word shaped.
Just one:
“Heard.”
Lanka smiled.
Shoulders lifting—
Just enough.
He stood.
Turned.
Walked away.
Not forgiven.
Not forgotten.
But no longer afraid to be remembered.