The peepal tree behind Dadi's house was the oldest living thing Priya
knew. Its trunk was so wide three children could not circle it.
Its roots pushed through the packed earth like the
fingers of a buried giant, cracking the garden wall in two places
that Dadi never bothered to fix. "The tree was here before the wall,"
she said. "It has seniority."
Priya sat between two of those roots, her back against the bark, and
watched the last light of the evening slide through the leaves. She
had been thinking all day — not about school, but about everything
she had heard this week. All the stories. All the
ways of loving something you cannot see.
Dadi in her kitchen, whispering God's name over every roti. Sharma-ji
on the ghat, smiling the same smile at everyone. Prahlada walking
through fire with nothing but a name on his lips. Sudama carrying
beaten rice to a king and never asking for anything in return.
She did not understand all of it. She was twelve. Some of it felt too
big, like trying to hold the river in her hands. But some of it had
settled inside her, the way a stone settles into the bed of a stream:
quietly, finding the exact place where it belonged.
She closed her eyes.
"I don't know how to meditate," she said out loud. Not to anyone in
particular. Just — out loud. "I don't know the right mantras. I can't
sit still for more than five minutes. I tried controlling my senses
once, and I lasted until I smelled the jalebis from the sweet shop
across the road."
A leaf spiralled down and landed on her knee. She turned it over. The
veins on the underside looked like tiny rivers on a green map.
"But I think I know how to love," she said. "I love Dadi. I love
Amma and Papa. I love the way this tree smells after rain. I love
the stories in the Gita, even the ones I don't fully understand yet.
And if bhakti means love — then maybe I'm already doing it. Maybe
I've been doing it all along."
The evening breeze picked up. The peepal leaves stirred — hundreds of
them, all at once, making that sound peepal trees make when the wind
passes through, like a thousand tiny hands clapping very softly. And
in that sound, just for a moment, Priya heard something else. A note.
High and clear and sweet. Like a flute played by someone sitting just
out of sight on a branch above her.
She opened her eyes and looked up. Nothing but leaves and sky and the
first pale star of evening.
She smiled.
Krishna says: those who follow this path of love with full faith are
exceedingly dear to Me. Not the most learned. Not the most disciplined.
The ones who love. Priya did not know all the answers. She did not
need to. She had heard the flute, and that was enough.
