For the boy, the world had shrunk to the gnawing hollow in his belly and the grit of dust grinding between his toes.
Then—a sound pierced the haze: a swelling hum of voices, like a river murmuring as it found its bed. Drawn by hunger's ache, he followed it to the market.
Under a canopy of bright awnings stretched a grand bhandara feast. The air throbbed with temptation: ghee blooming in hot woks, puris puffing golden in oil, the spice-sweet perfume of potato-tomato sabzi curling through the crowd.
He slipped into the slow, shuffling river of people—pilgrims, beggars, the forgotten—pressed shoulder to shoulder, inching toward the promise of food. Around him, voices rippled and tangled like eddies in the current:
"The puris are over there, I think!"
"Oh God... my legs are aching. Such a delay! In the old days, things were systematic. What's happened now?"
"They announced such a grand bhandara, but look at these arrangements!"
"At this pace, we'll be old before we eat!"
"Hey! Someone's cutting in from the front! What injustice is this? Are we fools for waiting?"
"Why so angry? Have patience."
"Patience? You should learn the wind technique from Guru Nabh..."
"No—no, brother. I'm fine right here."
"There you are, our man!"
"Hmph! No one wants to learn that brittle nonsense anymore."
"Exactly. That technique of his—it's a trap, if you ask me."
"He thinks we're fools! Especially not since he started demanding only pure-blooded Brahmins for his 'wind work.'"
"What a waste of us that would be."
One of them snorted, shaking his head with the lazy pity reserved for fallen idols.
One of them snorted with the lazy pity reserved for fallen idols. "Ha! Still peddling that fool's dream? Chasing shadows with his wind-whispering?"
"Who has time for that rot?" the first man shot back, his voice a sharp contrast to the boy's gnawing emptiness. "Down in the valley, they teach techniques that'll make fire bloom in your palm in a week!"
The other chuckled darkly. "That's why he's holed up in the Aravali crags now, croaking mantras at the rocks. Let the winds carry his sermons—at least they won't snore through them."
The voices tangled, then thinned—fading into the hum of heat and hunger. Only the drum of his heart remained, keeping the fragrance of food close enough to touch —the scent of his waiting plate rising above all else.