Ravi had been counting his coins on the courtyard step. He had been saving for weeks — a coin here, a coin there — and now he spread them out proudly in the sun. "Nani," he said, "what's the most special thing in the whole world? I want to know what to save up for."

Nani set down her paintbrush. She was working on a peacock that morning, its tail full of careful Madhubani dots.

"The most special things," she said, "are the ones you cannot buy at all."

Ravi frowned at his little pile of coins.

"Think about it," Nani said. "Could you buy the way Moti runs to the gate the second he hears your footsteps? You could have all the money in Bihar and you could not buy that. He gives it because he loves you."

"But you could buy other things," Ravi argued. "Books. You could read every book and become the wisest person ever."

"You could read a thousand books about the taste of a mango," Nani said, smiling, "and still not know it the way you know it the first time the juice runs down your chin. Some things books simply cannot hand you." She picked up her brush again. "Could you study your way into a friend truly trusting you? Could you do a hundred hard exercises and *force* someone to love you? Could you pay a teacher to make your mother proud of you? No. None of it. Not money, not study, not effort, not even gifts."

Ravi was quiet, watching the peacock's tail grow under her hand.

"There are things in this world," Nani said, "that cannot be bought, cannot be studied, cannot be earned with hard work or won with offerings. They can only be *loved* into being seen. You don't grab them. You open your heart, and they show themselves."

That, Krishna told Arjuna in the chariot, is exactly how it is with His deepest form. "Not by the Vedas, not by penance, not by gifts, not by sacrifice can I be seen as you have seen Me." All the books and rituals and great efforts in the world cannot pull back that final curtain. Only one thing can. And Krishna was about to tell Arjuna its name.