Men who fear the sunrise and the wind, reflected Paraashara in forgiveness, these are your twin discoveries: trade and war. In these have you barred the light and touch of God.’ Armies faced each other in battle, as in a mart of trade, with death as their tender; ants and worms, burden-carriers of the mart, heaved their tiny loads of flesh from the trenches, and hurried back and forth across the simmering line of battle.

Paraashara walked the captive Hayavadana along the mountainside, where in dugouts of snow, the soldiers kept vigil; the dead, their fingers frozen around their weapons, kept vigil over their own decomposition.

‘Look Hayavadana,’ Paraashara said,’ so many cadavers! And so much hide promises good trading.’

‘It does, indeed, General, sir.’

Imagine the fine things we can make with the hide, and the travellers who will come here to buy them.’

Hayavadana now felt at ease with his captor. He volunteered, ‘We could do many more things to please the travellers, sir. We could set up state-run bordellos. Women in cages would undoubtedly excite the travellers. It would help them experience their own brutal past again.’

‘Great will our earnings be, in precious hard currency. What then might we do with all that money?

Hayavadana smiled at the thought.

‘Sir, we can import candy and toys.’

‘What else?’

`Guns and rockets, flying machines and machines to ignite nuclear conflagrations.’

`What else?’

Hayavadana forgot his captivity as the guns aroused his lust.

‘Concubines, sir,’ said the man-woman.

‘Concubines?’

‘Yes, sir. We make Sorrows so that we can buy guns. The gun-sellers would reward us for buying from them, they will give us much gold. With that gold we can pay for more concubines.’

‘The story of the wealth of nations?’

‘So it is, sir.’

--O.V.Vijayan, The Saga of Dharmapuri.