Sporting a yellow tilak made of rice and turmeric, and a yellow headgear tied like a turban, ‘Raven’ enters the scene. Around 40 km from the bustling town of Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh, where the roads slither like pythons into the interiors of Amarwada, his convoy thumps along amid loud cheers—‘Raven bhaiya zindabad’. He is neither a caricature of the ‘demonised’ asura king Raavan depicted in the Ramleela plays, performed across north India during Dussehra, nor is he the wise and ascetic Brahmin king; he is ‘Raven’—who used to represent an administrative post in the erstwhile Gond kingdom.