Kiran lay on his back on the warm stone steps that led down to the Krishna river, watching the kites wheel high over the temple. Beside him, Thatha sat cross-legged with a square of cotton cloth across his knees, dipping his kalam pen and drawing a long, careful line.

"Thatha," Kiran said, "you told me God is everywhere. In the biggest tree and the brightest star and the widest river."

"I did," said Thatha, not looking up.

"But I forget." Kiran rolled onto his elbow. "I remember when you say it. Then I go to school, or I play, or I get hungry, and I forget all about it for the whole day. How am I supposed to keep God in my mind all the time?"

Thatha set down his pen. This, he thought, was exactly the question Arjuna once asked on the battlefield — *how may I know You, always thinking of You? In what forms should I picture You?* The wisest warrior who ever lived had wanted to know the very same thing as a ten-year-old boy by a river.

"Come here," Thatha said. He turned the cloth around. On it he had begun to draw the great peepul tree from the village square. "When you see the tallest, oldest tree — the one everyone gathers under — and your heart goes *ahh*, that *ahh* is God reminding you. You don't have to squeeze your eyes shut and try to remember. You just look at the best of things, and let the wonder be your remembering."

Kiran sat up. "So I look for Him in the biggest and the brightest?"

"In the biggest river, the highest mountain, the brightest light, the kindest person," Thatha said. "Wherever something is the greatest of its kind, a little of His shine is leaning through. Notice that shine, and you are thinking of Him — even while you play, even while you eat your tiffin."

Kiran looked up at the kites again, riding the highest air. The very highest one, the king of the sky. *Ahh,* he thought, and grinned, because he had just remembered God without even trying.

"That's it, isn't it," he said.

Thatha picked up his pen and smiled. "That's it."