Bhoomi had been standing with her arms stuck out stiffly for almost two minutes, trying not to blink, when Diya finally cracked.

“You win,” Diya said, collapsing onto the stone bench. “Nobody can out-Jagannath you.”

“I know,” said Bhoomi, still not blinking. “It’s the eyes. Round and serious. Like this.”

She turned to show off her best round-eyed stare and stepped straight backward into the pot of marigolds waiting to be strung for the temple. It went over with a crash, scattering orange petals and mud across the veranda floor.

Both girls froze. Then both girls burst out laughing, which is not what you do when your grandmother’s favourite pot has just broken into three pieces.

Dadi came out wiping her hands on her sari, took one look, and didn’t even ask who did it. “Both of you,” she said. “I can tell from the guilt on your faces alone.”

While they picked up petals, Diya pointed at the poster still tucked under her arm. “Dadi, why does he look like that? No fingers, no proper nose. It’s strange.”

Dadi settled onto the bench between the mess and the two of them.

“A king named Indradyumna wanted an idol so fine that anyone who saw it would forget their sorrows,” she said. “Only Vishwakarma, builder of the gods, could carve it. But he had one rule — twenty-one days locked in that room, and nobody, nobody, opens the door before then.”

“Twenty-one days,” Diya repeated, impressed despite herself. “I can’t even wait twenty-one minutes for laddoos to cool.”

“Neither could the queen,” said Dadi. “Before the twenty-one days were done, the hammering inside had gone silent for too long. She feared he’d fainted, or worse. So she opened the door — just to check.”

“And?” Bhoomi asked, forgetting the marigold mud on her hands.

“Vishwakarma was gone. Vanished, the moment the door moved. Left behind three idols with no hands, no fingers, unfinished forever.” Dadi paused. “The king wept. He thought he had ruined something sacred beyond repair.”

“But he hadn’t?” said Diya softly.

“The Lord himself appeared before the king,” Dadi said, “and told him not to grieve. He said He didn’t need fingers to hold His devotees, or a finished face to be loved by them. His grace was never in the perfect carving. It was always in the heart that came looking for Him.”

Diya looked down at the broken pot between them, and for once, didn’t say anything clever.

Bhoomi picked up the biggest piece and turned it over in her hands. “Maybe Dadi should keep this one. Broken things looking pretty solid to me lately.”