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         A long time ago, Calcutta was struck down by a terrible plague that took the lives of its children, so that little by little, as the inhabitants grew older, they lost all hope for the future. To resolve the situation, Shiva set off on a long journey in search of a cure. During his travels he frequently had to confront danger. In fact, he met with so may difficulties that the journey kept him away for many years, and when he returned to Calcutta he discovered that everything had changed. In his absence, a sorcerer had come from the other end of the world, briing with him a strange remedy that he proceeded to sell to the people of Calcutta for a high price indeed: the soul of every healthy born after the day.

         This is what Shiva's eyes saw. Where once there had been a jungle of mud huts, there now rose a city so large that nobody could view it in a single glance, and it faded into the horizon no matter which direction you looked. A city of palaces. Shiva was fascinated by the spatacle and decided to turn into a human being and walk through the streets of the city dressed as a beggar so that he could get to know its new inhabitants, the children whom the sorcerer's remedy had made possilbe and whose souls now belonged to him. But a great disappointment awaited Shiva.

         For seven days and seven night the beggar walked through the streets of Calcutta, knocking on palace doors, but they were all slammed in his face. Nobody wanted to listen to him. People shunned him and poked fun at him. As he roamed the immense city in despair, he discovered that poverty, misery, and darkness filled the hearts of its men. Such was Shiva's sadness that on the last night he decided to abandon his city for good. 

         As he did so, he began to weep and, without realizing it, left behind a trail of tears scattered through the jungle. At dawn, Shiva's tears turned to ice. When the men realized what they had don, they tried to make amends for their mistakes by storing Shiva's tears in a sanctuary. But one by one the tears melted in their hands, and the city-dwellers never saw ice again.

         From that day onward, the curse of a terrible heat fell upon the city, and the gods turned their backs on the place, leaving it at the mercy of the night spirits. The few remaining righteous men prayed that, one day, Shiva's tears might fall again from heaven and break the spell that had turned Calcutta into a doomed city...