In the mid-middle of India, the earth is hot, hot. During even the early summer, the foot touches the land as if one walks on pulsing human limbs. And the vast silence that covers the midday air seems an awake sleep. Only the eagles fly—high, and round and round. And there are many, many crows, of course. There could be no India without crows. In Sevagram now every object lies quiet—the dusty pathways, the bucket and pulley over the well, the bare neem tree by the kitchen—the latrine constructs far out, and composting. Nobody is asleep. Yet nobody, man or woman, is really awake. It’s the time when Gandhiji spins his charkha.

I have come to see him in his lone mud hut.1 My sister was getting married soon. I had to go and tell Gandhiji, I must leave the next day for this wedding. The wedding was to be in Hyderabad. He knew all about it.

At every footstep my breath was deep and slow—with awe. How to face him? The midday quiet was awesome too. The earth around Gandhiji belongs to India. He is India. How can one walk into this India. One does not walk to India in India. One cannot. One circumambulates a sanctuary. One cannot here. But I must enter his hut, when there is nobody anywhere. The sun seems to chant, to hum. I have no beads between my fingers. Yet I feel my fingers moving.

I enter the hut. Gandhiji is seated, on the floor, his eyes shut, his big ears awake, his one hand turning the wheel, his left hand holding the cotton boll. He did something doing nothing. I stood in front of him, hands folded. He opens his eyes. He beckons me to sit down. I sit down.

Then there is a wide space in silence.

‘Gandhiji, I am going to my sister’s marriage.’

‘Yes. I remember.’ His lips trembled and lisped, as he spoke. He seemed too civilized for man. Yet he was such a manly man.

He was silent again. Then he caught himself up.

‘Give her my blessings,’ says Gandhiji, closes his eyes, and begins to spin, once more.

I sit there watching him. He is not a man. He is no god. He seemed the breathful earth, spinning round and round empty space, spinning away. One can almost feel the earth underneath. It spins. It spins around, you know.

I sit, thus watching him.

I must not stay too long. How can one stay with such, resilient silence. Silence spinning silence seems the round of love. How then disturb a sanctuary.

Yet every devotee knows, when you have burnt the camphor before the deity, you must ring the bell above—once, twice, thrice—and take leave of your God or Goddess, the sanctified coconut and flowers in hand, and leave, carrying your sacredness back home.