The agrahara was shrouded in a heavy silence. The morning sun, usually so eager to slip through the narrow lanes, seemed hesitant today, as if it too was weighed down by the uncertainty that gripped every household. The air was thick with the scent of burning ghee lamps and the faint, lingering aroma of yesterday’s incense, now mingled with the musty odor of fear.

Praneshacharya sat in his small, dimly lit room, his eyes fixed on the sacred texts spread before him. The words, once so clear and comforting, now swam before his vision, elusive and ambiguous. He had spent the night in restless contemplation, searching for guidance in the shastras, but the answers he sought seemed to recede further with every page he turned.

Outside, the agrahara’s elders had gathered again beneath the ancient peepul tree. Their voices, usually so resolute, were now hushed and uncertain. Garudacharya, his forehead smeared with fresh vibhuti, spoke first. “Acharya, what is to be done? The body of Naranappa still lies in his house. The crows have begun to gather. If we do not perform the samskara soon, the pollution will spread.”

Praneshacharya did not answer immediately. He felt the weight of their gazes, the burden of their expectations. He knew that every man present looked to him for a decision, for a way out of this impasse. Yet, within him, doubt gnawed relentlessly.

He remembered Naranappa’s mocking laughter, the way he had flouted every rule, eaten fish with the outcastes, brought a courtesan into his home. And yet, Naranappa was a Brahmin by birth. Was it dharma to deny him the last rites? Or was it a greater sin to pollute the agrahara by performing them for an outcast in spirit?

The women watched from behind the half-closed doors, their faces pale with anxiety. Children, sensing the tension, played quietly, their usual shrieks subdued.

Praneshacharya closed his eyes. He tried to recall the teachings of his guru, the wisdom of the ancient rishis. But the words that came to him now were not from the scriptures, but from the depths of his own troubled heart.

Is dharma a matter of rules, or of compassion? Is purity preserved by shunning the impure, or by embracing them in their final hour?

He opened his eyes and looked at the elders. “Let us wait,” he said softly. “Let us pray for guidance. The path is not clear. Until then, let no one enter Naranappa’s house. Let us keep vigil and seek the answer together.”

The elders murmured their assent, though uneasily. The day wore on, heavy with indecision. The agrahara held its breath, suspended between the old certainties and the unknown that lay ahead.

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The morning sun’s heat fell upon the forest floor in shifting patterns, like rangavalli designs. Praneshacharya, dragging his weary feet, had for a long while lost all sense of direction or purpose. Anxiously, he wondered if the remains of his wife’s body—the fragments of bone that had not been consumed by the flames—would now be picked at by dogs and jackals. He felt a pang of regret that he had not waited long enough to gather them and consign them to the waters. But then he reassured himself: having left everything behind, having cast off all bonds, he owed nothing more to anyone.

He thought, let my feet carry me wherever they will; let me walk on, true to that resolve. He tried to steady his mind, to bring it to a state of calm, to move forward with determination. In the past, whenever his mind became restless, he would focus it by chanting “Achyuta, Ananta, Govinda.” Now, too, he felt the urge to repeat those names. He remembered: “Yoga is the cessation of the movements of the mind.” But then he rebuked himself—“No!”—and warned himself even against the comfort of name-recitation. Let the mind, for now, be like the rangavalli patterns the sunlight draws through the branches—open, unguarded, unshaped.

Let there be light in the sky, shade beneath the trees, patterns on the earth. If fortune allows, and a drop of dew touches, there will be a rainbow. Life must become like the sunlight—nothing more. Pure awareness, pure wonder. Like Garuda, wings outstretched, silent and content, floating in the sky. The feet walk, the eyes see, the ears listen. One must simply be, without expectation. Only then does life reach a state of acceptance. Otherwise, it becomes coarse with longing, twisted, tangled like a worn-out thread.

Kanaka’s mind was pure awareness, pure wonder; that is why he came before his guru and asked: “Where, secretly, shall I eat this banana? Where is God?”

He was always there, wasn’t He! God had become a thread woven into my very speech; but unlike Kanaka, I never felt wonder or awakening—so henceforth, God is forbidden to me.

Once God is set aside, I must also cast off the anxieties of guru-ṛṇa, pitṛ-ṛṇa, deva-ṛṇa—the debts to teacher, father, and deity. That is, I must stand apart from society itself. For this reason alone, I resolved to walk on until I reached the edge of the world, and so I set out, determined. In this pathless forest, I must keep walking thus. If I grow weary, if I hunger, if I thirst—Praneshacharya’s chain of thought suddenly halted. Was I not heading into yet another cave of self-deception? Though I had resolved to walk to the world’s edge, why did I not stray too far, drawn back by the distant sound of a cowherd boy’s flute, the bamboo bells around the cows’ necks? Whatever my resolve, my feet led me closer to human habitation. This is the boundary of my world. This is the limit of my freedom. I cannot live without human company.

It is like the story of the sannyasi’s kaupina: to save his loincloth from being gnawed by