The morning light fell in warm stripes across the workshop floor as Thatha
bent over a long strip of cotton cloth, his Kalamkari pen dipped in
rust-brown dye. And as he painted, he was humming.
Kiran had heard his grandfather hum a hundred tunes, but this one was
different. It rose and dipped in long, slow waves, curling up high and then
sliding low, like a bird riding the wind over the millet fields.
"What song is that, Thatha?"
"It isn't quite a song," said Thatha, not looking up from the curve he was
drawing. "It is a chant from the Sama-Veda. The other Vedas are spoken. The
Sama-Veda is sung. Long ago the rishis found that some truths are too big
for plain words — they have to be carried on a melody." He let the tune
trail off. "Krishna says among all the Vedas, he is that singing one."
Kiran sat cross-legged and watched the pen move. He tried to notice
everything at once: the smell of the dye, the scratch of the nib, the
warmth on his arm, the brown line growing into the shape of a peacock.
"Thatha," he said slowly, "my eyes see the line. My ears hear your song. My
nose smells the dye. My skin feels the sun. They're all working at the same
time. But who is the one... putting it all together?"
Thatha finally looked up, and his eyes were bright. "Now that is a fine
question. The eyes only see. The ears only hear. Each sense knows just its
own little corner. But behind them all sits the mind — the one who gathers
everything the senses bring and makes a whole picture out of it. The mind is
the king of the senses, the way Indra is king of the gods." He tapped his
own forehead gently. "And Krishna says he is that king, that mind."
Kiran closed his eyes. With his eyes shut he could still hear, still smell,
still feel. And somehow he still knew it was all happening to him. There was
something awake inside that did not switch off.
"And that knowing-that-you're-here feeling?" he asked, eyes still closed.
"That is the deepest one of all," Thatha said softly. "That is the
consciousness Krishna says lives in every creature — the bird, the buffalo,
you. Not the eyes, not the ears, not even the busy mind. The quiet light
behind all of it that simply knows."
Kiran opened his eyes. The peacock on the cloth seemed to be looking back at
him, as if it, too, knew.
