Divinely Destined, page 26
Divinely Destined
Table of Contents
Title Page
ALSO BY DIPA SANATANI
Invocation to Ma Bhadrakali
Part 1 | The Savannah
1 Bard
2 Cycle
3 Rain
4 Memory
5 Hyena
Part 2 | The Kingdom
6 The Mad King
7 Tyranny
8 Shadow
Part 3 | The City
9 The Village
10 The Disappointment
11 Divinely Destined
12 Stories
13 The Future
14 The Four Cups
Part 4 | The Quest
15 The Network
16 The Narrative
17 Liars!
18 The Scraps
19 Mythos
Part 5 | The Truth
20 Different
21 Quarrel
22 Dumped
23 Erasure
24 Man’s World
25 New Voice
26 Sacred Speech
Part 6 | The Freedom
27 Silence
28 Ego
29 A Bag of Tales
30 Archaeology
31 Legacy
32 Divine Dancer
Acknowledgments
About the Author
ALSO BY DIPA SANATANI
The Guardians of the Lore Trilogy
The Little Light
The Heart of Shiva
The Prophetess of Dharma
Fiction
A Thousand Names
Illuminator
Prose-Poetry
Oneness
The River Empress
Ink Stained Soul
Creative Non-Fiction
The Merchant of Stories
Divinely Destined
Copyright © 2025 by Dipa Sanatani
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by Singapore copyright law. For permission requests, contact the publisher TWINN SWAN.
ISBN Hardcover: 978-981-94-2946-2
ISBN Paperback: 978-981-94-2945-5
ISBN E-Book: 978-981-94-2944-8
National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data
Name(s): Sanatani, , Dipa.
Title: Divinely destined / Dipa Sanatani.
Description: Singapore : Twinn Swan, [2025]
Identifier(s): ISBN 978-981-94-2946-2 (hardcoover) | 978-981-94-2945-5 (paperback) | 978-981-94-2944-8 (ebook)
Subject(s): LCSH: Truth—Fiction. | Spirituality—Fiction.
Classification: DDC S823—dc23
The Book Cover is designed by Dipa Sanatani.
TWINN SWAN
Singapore
www.dipasanatani.com
Invocation to Ma Bhadrakali
भद्रकालीस्तुतिः
Sanskrit:
कालि कालि महाकालि भद्रकालि नमोऽस्तु ते।
कुलं च कुलधर्मं च मां च पालय पालय।
भद्रकालि नमस्तुभ्यं भद्रे विद्रावितासुरे।
रुद्रनेत्राग्निसंभूते भद्रमाशु प्रयच्छ मे।
Transliteration
Kāli Kāli Mahākāli Bhadrakāli Namo’stu Te |
Kulaṁ Cha Kuladharmaṁ Cha Māṁ Cha Pālaya Pālaya |
Bhadrakāli Namastubhyaṁ Bhadre Vidrāvitāsure |
Rudranetrāgnisambhūte Bhadramāśu Prayachchha Me ||
Translation
O Kali, Great Kali, Auspicious Kali, I bow to You. Protect my family, our sacred traditions, and me—unceasingly. Salutations to You, Bhadrakali, radiant vanquisher of demons! Born from the fire of Rudra’s all-seeing eye, swiftly bestow upon me Your blessings of peace and prosperity.
Part 1
The Savannah
1 Bard
My name is Artha and I will be your bard this evening. Listen carefully, for in my stories I have no doubt that you will hear your own. The tales I weave are not mere fantasies. They are maps drawn from the intricate and unseen connections that bind our lives.
Tonight, I offer you one such tale. Heed my words, mortal, not as a simple diversion, but as a reflection. If you truly listen, you will find, within its contours, a familiar bend in your own road or the shadow of a choice you have yet to make.
The air in this space holds the quiet weight of your individual histories. You may think you are here for simple entertainment, but stories, told by a bard, have a way of unearthing uncomfortable truths. Listen closely, not for fanciful escapism, but for the subtle friction where my narrative rubs against the grain of your own experience.
Amidst the friction’s fierce reckoning, unforeseeable sparks may arise, kindling the flame of a profound truth. And should a shadow within my tale stir a forgotten corner of your own memory, consider it not a mere coincidence, but the lingering echo of a truth you have yet to fully confront.
Listen carefully, for truth is a slippery substance—rarely found upon the tongues of those who are tangled in the tastes of their own desires. Folk may twist words to shield themselves, to gain favour, or to hide their shame. Trust not every tale, but seek the truth that still stands when all voices fall silent, for the words of others can cast long shadows, veiling your soul’s true light.
When the silken whispers of untruth surround the unsuspecting, and the architects of deceit dwell in the dimness they create, the remedy—though sharp—is the unflinching exposition of what is real, for it is within that revelation that the bruised soul discovers not the depth of its own wounds, but the very ambrosia to heal and stride forth unburdened.
I tell you these tales to whisper of the fortitude that can bloom even when one is surrounded by the clamour of falsehoods. When the world, a tempest of deceit, rises against you, you must stand firm upon the solid ground of your own authenticity. Then, the very act of seeing clearly becomes your unshakeable foundation, a solitary strength against the severity of the upcoming quest.
The tales I share are not solely of humankind, but echoes resonating from the earth itself. When the sun, heavy with the day's passing, leaned towards the edge of the world, and the sky softened into shades of amber and honey, I would light the hearth fire and listen, with my inner ear, to the stories told by the Land. The Land Herself spoke to me, whispering, carrying and transmitting the tales of the savannah, where the mighty lions once reigned with strength and cunning.
The Dawn would come yet again, but for now, it was the hour of Night. The infinite expanse of the jewels of the night sky pulsed with a silent narrative, each ripple of heat a whispered legend of the pride's patriarch, whose roar once sculpted the very contours of dominion across the ancient grasslands.
2 Cycle
The savannah hummed under the weight of its own contradictions. The lions—prideful and golden-maned—ruled the grasslands as if the sun itself had crowned them. Their crown in the hierarchy was a brittle thing, propped up by an unspoken rule. The lion always ate first.
He did not hunt. His role was to patrol territory, roar at rivals and sire cubs. Yet, when the lionesses dragged a gazelle’s broken body to the shade of the acacia tree, he would rise from his rest, muscles rippling like oil over stone and claim the choicest cuts: the tender haunch, the liver rich with iron and the heart still warm from its final beat.
The lionesses waited, ribs pressed against her tawny fur as he gorged on his feast. Only when he retreated to sleep beneath the thorn tree did they descend on the carcass, tearing at what remained—bone, sinew, and scraps of meat clinging to cartilage.
The hyenas always came last. They were the shadows that emerged in the dusk, their laughter sharp and hollow. The lionesses, now sated but fatigued, would retreat as the hyenas closed in, their jaws crushing what even the lions could not digest. Marrow was sucked from splintered femurs as hooves and horns were grounded into a paste. The hyenas took what the pride discarded, their existence a much-needed mirror to the pride’s decadent waste.
This order was not born of malice, but necessity. The lion’s strength deterred rivals and his roar kept other prides at bay. If he grew weak, the territory would collapse and the lionesses would lose their hunting grounds. His survival was the pride’s survival.
Within the lionesses’ growing hunger was a quiet rebellion. They hunted not for themselves, but for him, their bodies honed by labour his bulk could not endure. And the hyenas? Their laughter hid a truth: they thrived on what was neglected. The pride’s waste fed their clans, their matriarchs sharp-eyed and relentless in their opportunism, making use of what others would so easily dismiss and discard.
The system endured because it served each in its turn. The lion fed his own vanity and kept the pride safe. The lionesses secured the kill and suppressed their true ambitions. The hyenas cleaned the bones and bided their time.
All was as it had always been.
❁
One season, the rains failed. Mother Mari, the Rain Goddess, did not come. The ochre dust, a constant torment, choked the Land, and no tears of the Goddess arrived to soothe it. Cracks spiderwebbed across the earth, forming a treacherous m
aze. The river, their lifeline, shrank to a fragile thread. They—the animals—waited, with a patience fraying at the edges, under the empty sky.
Each dry dawn was a brutal echo of the Goddess’ abandonment. The question hung heavy in the air: would the rains ever return? Thirst dulled the animals. Their calls grew weak. Even the lions lay still. The hyena's laughter sharpened with desperation. The grass withered, coaxing the herds into an early migration.
When the lionesses finally and painstakingly brought down a gaunt antelope, the lion ate until his sides swelled, leaving behind only the gristle and hide. The lionesses gnawed at tendons, the milk for their young drying up. When the hyenas arrived, they found nothing but cracked hooves and dust.
Later that night, the lion continued to roar at the empty dark, demanding respect. The lionesses watched him, their eyes reflecting the cold light of the stars. The hyenas lingered at the edge of the territory, silent for once. In the morning, the lionesses did not hunt. The hyenas, desperate, began to stalk the edges of the pride’s territory, testing boundaries. The lion charged at them, but his belly was empty, his roars thin.
By the next moon, the pride had completely fractured. Under the constant pressure of dwindling resources, the lioness’ loyalty to the ageing male finally snapped. There were no dramatic confrontations, no final roars of defiance—just the quiet padding of paws into the darkness, a collective turning away from a future that offered only scarcity and the unsettling presence of the emboldened hyenas. The lionesses’ departure to find a new territory led to a permanent separation of old loyalties. Their departure was a silent severing.
The once vibrant social fabric of the pride, the intricate web of kinship and shared purpose, had ended. The playful nips of cubs were gone, replaced by an unnerving sense of irreversible loss. The lion, now utterly alone, became a stark silhouette against the horizon, a monumental figure to a fallen reign. The scent of his pride, the familiar musk that had once defined his world, began to fade, carried away on the wind, leaving behind a void that mirrored the emptiness in his own heart.
The lion was now a king without a kingdom. The weight of his solitude settled down upon him. The hyenas, emboldened by a subtle shift in the power dynamics of the savannah, experienced an eventual evaporation of their usual deference.
The lion, once a figure of unchallenged authority, now found his himself interrupted by their insolent stares and the daring snatches of carrion just beyond his reach. He was no longer the untouchable sovereign, but a vulnerable entity whose dominion was ripe for challenge.
The lion, though still formidable, carried the weight of his waning influence, a subtle weariness in his gait and a less resonant power in his roar. The lion, stripped of his mystique, was now simply a large, ageing feline, and the Land, in the hyena’s emboldened minds, was already theirs for the taking.
The hyena’s natural instincts metamorphosed, replaced by a brazen confidence which encroached upon the lion's traditional hunting grounds.
3 Rain
Beneath the naked eye—in the place where past, present and future are all known—a more profound narrative pulsed. Beneath the secretive gaze of the heavenly lunar mansions, in the liminal space where the echoes of what was, the thrum of what is, and the whispers of what will be converge, a deeper current of everlasting wisdom flowed.
It was a knowing woven into the very fabric of existence, a silent testament to the cyclical nature of time and the Oneness of the Infinite. Here, in the liminal hour between sunset and moonlight, the veil thinned and the linear constraints of mortal perception dissolved.
The genesis of the circle—the cycle of life—lay in the understanding of the true nature of the Divine, a narrative unfolding not in the vanquished lion's cry, but in the profound silence of destiny's brushstroke.
Each rise and fall of the lion—the savannah's sovereign lord and king—was a mere brushstroke in a larger, celestial portrait, a testament to a higher law that transcended the temporary reign of tooth and claw. The sun's daytime journey across the sky mirrored the arc of their dominance, a blazing ascent followed by an inevitable decline and disappearance.
The lion’s golden manes, his unchallenged authority, his powerful roars, his declarations of ownership, masked a deeper truth: a cyclical order defined by the pursuit of power, the shadow of scarcity and the implicit hierarchy accepted by the ones who received the scraps.
Yet, within this cycle of power and vulnerability, lay a profound truth. It spoke of a force beyond brute strength, a current of destiny that shaped not only the fate of great kings, but the very rhythm of all life.
In that rhythm, the roaring rise of a mighty male was a fleeting manifestation. His supremacy, echoing across the vastness, was a temporary assertion within an immeasurable tapestry. His eventual yielding—whether to time or a younger rival—was not an end, but a necessary transition: a silent acknowledgment of the enduring will that moved through all creation, as the divine narrative whispered tales told and retold on the winds of the savannah.
When the rains failed, the delicate balance of the savannah collapsed, and the established hierarchy, once dictated solely by strength and lineage, dissolved. No longer did the dominant take their fill first, leaving leftovers and scraps for those deemed lesser.
The pervasive drought created a brutal equality of scarcity, a desperate free-for-all. This reality was an overdue reversal of the original order, a brutal testament to how Mother Mari, the Goddess of Rain, could dismantle even the most unquestioned of power structures.
The hyenas, in particular, love to tell the story of what happened after the lion died. Once mere scavengers picking through another’s leftovers, they rose to claim the open ground, their laughter echoing where the lion’s roar once ruled. Their former vulnerability became a badge of survival; what was once desperation hardened into resourcefulness and unity. In the absence of the lion, the hyenas didn’t just inherit the land—they reinvented what it meant to rule.
The hyena told me, in no uncertain terms, that the scraps are not inevitable. They exist because systems are designed to preserve power, not equity. The lion’s share persists only as long as the lionesses and hyenas accept their roles. When they refuse—when the hunted stop hunting, when the scavengers stop waiting—the hierarchy collapses.
I tell you this to remind you that the scraps are a choice, not a law. They are a reminder that power is not absolute, but a fragile thing, maintained by those who fear its loss more than they desire its change. I tell you this to remind you that agricultural deities like rain can change the entire weather forecast of our future lives.
4 Memory
The Land still remembers this tale, I told my listeners.
It whispers to all who can hear Her voice: No hierarchy is eternal. When the heavens withhold their bounty, the established pecking order, based on access to resources, crumbles as the fundamental basis of that order—the consistent availability of sustenance—disappears for all.
The hyenas had long existed on the periphery, their paltry portions dictated by the leavings of the lion's hunt, a constant reminder of their subordinate status. Their time of dependence was drawing to a close, for the balance itself was changing, and the scraps they once scavenged would soon be replaced by a far more substantial claim.
Do not believe the tales that the strong tell the starving, for one day, the starving will refuse to heed it. The story is entrenched in a hierarchy—where the lion takes the most, the lionesses survive on leftovers, and the hyenas scavenge for scraps. You may, in your youth, have encountered this narrative as a simple fable, perhaps even as one meant to illustrate immutable truths about the natural order.
The tale, however, speaks not just of a lion and hyenas, but of the ingrained mechanisms which perpetuate the cycles of advantage and disadvantage. Inherited power structures, even when weakened, can cast long shadows where the struggle for resources becomes a brutal reflection of irreparable imbalances.
The hyenas' initial subservience, the lion's presumed right to rule, and the eventual upheaval are the animistic remnants of the complex power dynamics that shape our own world, revealing how deeply ingrained disparities can be challenged and, at times, tragically reinforced.
