Dadi's knees had their own opinions these days, and their opinion was always the same: no.

No to sitting cross-legged. No to kneeling for puja. No to the long walk to the Hanuman temple at the end of the lane. The doctor had said something about cartilage wearing down, like rubber on old chappals. Dadi had nodded politely and gone home to her kitchen.

Because if her knees would not take her to the temple, she would bring the temple to her knees.

Her granddaughter Priya noticed it first. Dadi had stuck a small picture of Krishna on the wall above the stove — right between the spice rack and the steel container of atta. Blue-skinned, flute in hand, smiling as if the smell of dal simmering below did not bother him at all.

"Dadi, why is Kanha next to the turmeric?" Priya asked, dropping her school bag on a chair.

"Because he likes the colour yellow," Dadi said, not looking up. She was rolling roti dough, pressing each ball flat with the heel of her palm, then spinning it on the board until it became a perfect circle. Her hands moved steady and unhurried, as if they knew the shape of a roti the way a river knows the shape of its banks.

Priya sat on the kitchen stool and watched. Dadi whispered something each time she pressed the dough. At first Priya thought she was counting. Then she leaned closer and heard it — names. Ram, Shyam, Govinda, Gopal. One name per press. One name per roti.

"Are you praying?" Priya asked.

"I suppose I am," Dadi said. She flipped a roti onto the hot tava and it puffed up immediately, filling the kitchen with the warm smell of toasted wheat. "The sadhus sit by the Ganga and meditate for hours. I can't do that. My back hurts and my mind wanders to whether I've put enough salt in the dal." She laughed — without embarrassment, as if her own limitations were old friends she had made peace with.

"So you cook instead?"

"I cook for God instead," Dadi said simply. Not proud, not pious. Just true. "Every roti is for someone I love. This one is for your Baba. This one is for you. This one is for the postman, because he climbs three flights of stairs in this heat." She stacked each roti in the steel dabba with a cloth between.

Priya looked at the picture of Krishna above the stove. The kitchen smelled of ghee and chapati and the faint sweetness of cardamom from the chai pot. There were no marble floors, no bells, no incense. But watching Dadi's hands — rolling, pressing, flipping, stacking — Priya understood something.

Not everyone can sit still and meditate. Not everyone can practise for hours. But everyone can do their work with love. And when you do, the work itself becomes the prayer, the kitchen becomes the temple, and every roti carries a quiet, invisible blessing inside it.