Mahima Zecharia (Cataclysmic Gerosha)

Mahima Chawla (neé Zecharia) is the deuteragonist of the background story in the 2022 version of Corando's "Don't Lose Hope". She is the daughter of Amita Zecharia, eventual wife of Darshan Chawla, and eventual mother to Adriv Chawla.

Character bio
Mahima was born in the mid-90s to Aayush and Amita Zecharia, and shared their interests in evangelism and homesteading. While also something of a fashionista, Mahima at one point considered pursuing a psychology degree, to go into counseling. She values wellness, and improvised homemade medicine. After her father's death, she became increasingly active in an underground church located in Porbandar. While there, she met Darshan Chawla, and began dating him with her mother's blessing. The two were on the verge of officially becoming engaged, though Darshan acquired an opportunity to study abroad. She was willing to let Darshan make his own decision, and wait for him if he chose to visit America.

However, her comfortable paradigm was disrupted after she was discovered to exist by one Daruka Naidu - a Hindi nationalist extremist intent on eradicating all Christians from Porbandar. Daruka also intended to capture Mahima, and traffic her on the global market into forced prostitution. Daruka heads to a Hindu temple, inciting hatred and acquiring several thugs to instigate a riot in the city. Amidst the chaos, Mahima is separated from her fellow churchgoers - and even from her own mother. Darshan and his friend Ketan flee to the nearest safe place, though they are troubled that they can't find Mahima. Amita is assassinated by Daruka's one henchman, Prateem Chankedar. Another one, Reza Kirmani, assists Daruka with abducting Mahima.

She is eventually taken to an improvised prison camp on the outskirts of town, where Daruka taunts her that she should "just give up" - on her faith in God, on her hopes for a life with Darshan, and everything else. Mahima refuses to believe that Daruka's vision for her future will hold true, even if she's lost Darshan. Her stubbornness while in captivity irritates Daruka, who threatens her with a guillotine.

While she is in captivity, the angel Filforth counts the population of Porbandar. Amita's death brought the Christian remnant amid the riots down to under ten. Meteors are then sent to punish the region, with meteors killing Mahima's captors and destroying the cage holding her. She has a brief vision of seeing Jesus, and then gets directed by Filforth to go to the Hotel Viram to find a phone from which to contact Darshan. Mahima obeys without arguing, as she is not about to argue with such a bizarre creature as Filforth.

More meteors arrive, and Mahima finally procures a functioning phone. Cell tower service has miraculously not been destroyed yet, so she calls up Darshan's phone and alerts him to her position. Darshan and Ketan rush to Mahima's location, dodging meteors along the way, as Darsan attempts to remain calm while Ketan panics that they're all about to die.

Darshan and Mahima not only survive Porbandar's destruction; but manage to flee north to the province of Bihar, to a town near the border with Nepal. Ketan goes along with to live with them, and to help manage their new homestead. The couple get married, and have a son named Adriv a year later.

She was flattered beyond belief to receive an invitation to re-tell the tale of her survival, and arrived to Texas with Darshan and Ketan. Stefflin Records helped authorize the making of a music video to "Don't Lose Hope" by the band Corando, with the band eager to have Darshan and Mahima's story feature in their video.

Mahima proves very supportive of all of Darshan and Adriv's life aspirations, while also managing the homestead to the best of her abilities.

Personality
Mahima is a very charitable individual, but also sharp-tongued when it comes to condemning the violence of Hindi nationalists. Her dedication to the idea of her family, and the ability of others to raise families in peace, mirrors that of Candi McArthur, though Mahima is far less able to fight a war over it. She also takes considerable pride in managing the Chawla Homestead. In The Sims 4, her character model has the "Inner Peace" aspiration set, with a default trait of "Spa Membership." Her other assigned traits are "Ambitious," "Self-Assured," and "Romantic."

Trivia

 * Mahima was originally intended to be even more similar to her character model's inspiration: M.I.A. Her outfits were later modified to fit what would be more reasonable for her to have in the wake of her various situations.
 * Mahima eventually owns several chickens, naming them sometimes after how she intends to cook at eat them one day, in a fashion similar to that of DJ Duckslaughter.
 * The ones named after cooking styles are Barbecue, Oven Fry, Soup Bird, and Pot Pie.
 * "ISO" is the one that is most often apart from the others, with her name meaning "Isolated Chicken." The Dozerfleet founder's family once had a hen that went by this name.
 * "Tiny" is the name of one of Mahima's roosters. The Dozerfleet founder's family used to have a Cornish rooster named "Tiny."
 * "Jen Hen" is a running gag, unrelated to Jen Emberton. The joke of naming chickens "Jen" goes back to at least the first-ever incarnation of Jawknee.
 * RandoHen was named because of running out of ideas for good chicken names.