When he returned to Pandayam Tal and his matkas, Aman found them hot to the touch as the sun had been shining heavily on them. He enjoyed a rare warm shower. There was no such thing as a calendar in his possession, and he had little idea then that the cold winds of Pausha were around the corner.

Later that day, in Gurukul, Aman was delighted when Savitri’s ample form came and sat right in front of him, blocking him from Acharya Ashwini’s view. The teacher had a habit of picking on Aman when asking questions.

That day, the acharya told his students about the impending winter: ‘Assaulting winds are due to roll in from the peaks. In these times, the value of tolerance and the ability to control your body heat cannot be stressed enough. Don’t forget, the journey lies within. You must know what it takes to conjure up the deepest of controls, meditate and, most importantly, seize command of your dress.’

Dress? What dress? Aman looked at the acharya through the gap in Savitri’s bent elbow.

Acharya Ashwini continued, ‘We are not our body. We are only the soul.’ The teacher touched his forehead. ‘But this,’ he said with eyes closed, his index finger delicately covering his wrist to indicate his body, ‘is merely a dress.’

Aman had started ascribing every pleasant occurrence in his life to the temporary power flowing through his veins—remnants of the kirtimukha. Later that day, for lunch, he wasn’t surprised when he found grapes, his favourite, in the lunch packet he had picked randomly. He felt powerful, like he could do no wrong.

Of the five of them, only Prithvi had been given a reprieve from Sanaka’s punishments. Idhika, Ujal, Fayza and Aman decided to choose their chores by randomly selecting twigs.

‘So,’ Idhika said, holding up four twigs of different sizes. ‘I’ll hide these until all four look the same. Then we each pull one. The shortest one gets the last pick.’

‘What were Sanaka’s four punishments again?’ Ujal asked.

‘Let’s see,’ Idhika said. ‘One of us has to clean utensils. Another has to collect wood. The third chore is raking leaves. The final, and probably the most difficult, is to find the rare woodsorrel leaves for Sanaka.’

Idhika offered Aman the first go, covering the twigs with her fingers until they looked the same length.

Trust your gut. The prospect of having to visit Sanaka regularly gave Aman the chills. But this time luck was not on his side—he pulled the shortest twig. The group broke into laughter as it meant Aman would have to look for the woodsorrel leaves.

Ujal pulled the longest stick and chose to collect wood. Fayza was to rake the leaves and that meant that Idhika would be at Aahaar, cleaning utensils.

Clearly, Aman’s good fortune was starting to flame out. But over the next week, he utilized it well: he searched and made a note of different clusters of woodsorrel leaves, allowing himself to pluck them fresh each day. For ordinary life without any powers was to resume soon, and when it did, it would be dull in comparison.