Ishaan reached the seventeenth chapter while scrolling gently through the worn yet radiant pages of She Who Became My Guru. The golden sunlight filtered through the old Himalayan cedar tree outside his verandah, dappling the terrace floor in shifting patterns. The breeze carried a faint scent of wild jasmine and the sound of temple bells from a distant village. At fifty-two, he sat barefoot, his shawl slightly falling off one shoulder, feeling the chapters not as memories but as a sacred present moment—unfolding, breathing, alive.
As he turned the page, the memory of Moon’s silent valleys dissolved slowly into another rhythm—warmer, more embodied, more intimate.
After his long lunar posting at Pitru Loka station, Ishaan had returned to Earth not as the same man who once left. The Moon had carved him inwardly, sanded his rough edges, softened his longings. But in softening, it had also exposed him. His reunion with Vedika, though filled with warmth, had also been shadowed by a silent current—something unspoken, almost spectral.
He would lie beside her at night, hearing Diya’s quiet breaths from the adjacent room, and still feel as though some part of his soul was adrift—watching stars over the lunar dome. And Vedika, wise and quietly alert as ever, noticed.
One evening, while they were preparing halwa together—him lazily stirring, she adjusting the cardamom—she said without looking up,
“Do you know, Ishaan, sometimes the only way to return to someone is not through memories, but through energy.”
He blinked, then laughed. “Are we back to decoding tantra over dessert?”
She smiled without responding.
Both had grown up in deeply Tantric lineages—hers from a family that revered the Lalita path, his through subtle exposure via cousins like Govind and his grandfather’s eclectic library. But they had both practiced only what mainstream society permitted—mostly satvik, meditative, structured. Little touch of the left-hand path, maybe in whispers or books, but never in living reality.
But something about Ishaan’s return—his moonlit detachment, his eyes carrying forgotten verses—nudged Vedika into a sacred mischief.
She began lighting diyas earlier in the evening, adding gentle yoni-shaped lamps on the brass puja tray. The incense changed—earthier, muskier. One day, she even replaced their usual background mantras with a slow, trance-like chant of Tripura Sundari, layered with ancient Vedic drones.
The energy in the house shifted subtly. Ishaan noticed it but said nothing, choosing to watch. Until one twilight, she asked,
“Will you meditate with me? Like we did when we first met?”
He nodded. But this time, it was different.
The room was lit in a soft reddish hue. Not by decoration, but by the placement of diyas and one small red cloth covering a lamp. Vedika sat opposite him in a semi-lotus pose, her eyes half closed, her spine straight like a temple pillar. Ishaan mirrored her, unsure of what to expect. No instructions were given.
The silence settled, thick and intentional. And then, she began to breathe—not with noise or strain, but in rhythmic waves that seemed to rock the space between them.
Slowly, Ishaan joined. And for the first time in years, he wasn’t breathing alone.
Their breath mingled, met, flowed. The space between them disappeared. He felt his past selves—moon-dweller, wandering student, silent lover—melting into just a man sitting before a woman.
She opened her eyes then and softly placed her palm near his heart—not touching, just hovering.
“You’re not far,” she said gently. “You’re just… elsewhere.”
He blinked, tears rising. “I thought I had lost the doorway.”
“No. You just stopped knocking.”
The days that followed were a rediscovery of love not as romance, but as re-alignment. Tantra wasn’t something they “did”—it was a presence that began living in their home. There were no rituals laid down in manuals, but spontaneous energy exchanges—a touch, a gaze, a shared silence that thickened into stillness.
One morning, as they both sat in padmasana facing the window with the sun rising through misty deodars, Ishaan whispered,
“I used to see Myra so vividly during my early meditation days at Lunar University. The moon made her into a goddess, and my guru used to appear with her—like the moon conjured both divine and desire in one breath.”
Vedika listened, eyes closed.
He continued, “But she was never just a woman to me. She was… essence. Beyond shape. She disappeared like dawn into sunlight after we married. But I never hated her for it.”
Vedika opened her eyes. “You don’t have to bury her. We women can hold space for things your mind thinks it must erase. She’s part of your sacred fire. And perhaps… in some way, she brought you closer to me.”
He touched her hand. “That’s why I never spoke of her. Not even to my cousin Ranjana. Not to Gagan. Not even to Mr. Dutt when he probed kindly during his rare visits.”
She smiled with an amused raise of her eyebrow. “Not even to Vinod?”
“Vinod would’ve turned it into a mathematical theory,” he chuckled.
The journey into tantric rediscovery took them deeper—not just into each other, but into themselves. One evening, Vedika recalled a family tale.
“Did you know, in my lineage it’s believed that true tantra is the art of becoming transparent to the divine? Not projecting desire, nor suppressing it—but becoming so pure that even your longing is a prayer.”
“That sounds like Myra,” Ishaan whispered.
“Or like you,” Vedika countered.
There was one evening, particularly unforgettable. Rain was pouring outside, steady and rhythmic. They had done a light meditation, and Vedika brought out a bowl of kesar-milk. They sat in silence sipping it when she said,
“Tantra isn’t about rising above the body, Ishaan. It’s about making even the body divine.”
He nodded. “On the moon, I felt detached. On Earth, I feel anchored. But with you, I feel… reconnected.” Ishaan added, Tantra is already extraordinary… but what truly elevates it is the subtle presence and blessings of the Pitras who reside here in pitru loka in subtle form.
She leaned into him, forehead against his. “That’s the whole path, isn’t it? Not to escape the world, but to light it up. From inside.”
The days melted into a rhythm—practical, sacred, silly, silent. Ishaan would sometimes cook too much daal; Vedika would sometimes burn the incense stick. But all of it was part of the cosmic play. Their tantra wasn’t a grand ritual. It was two people meeting, again and again, without past, without future, only present.
And when Diya asked innocently one day, “Papa, why do you both smile so much these days?”, Ishaan kissed her forehead and whispered, “Because love has many chapters, and we just opened a new one.”
Ishaan paused reading.
The breeze was cooler now. The bells had stopped. Only bird songs remained, stitching the sky with invisible threads. The cedar shadows had stretched further along the terrace. A light cloud passed over the sun, scattering a golden glow.
He closed the book for a moment and whispered to the wind,
“Thank you, Vedika. You brought me back.”
The next chapter waited patiently.
But for now, he sat still, the memory warm, the moment sacred.
Demystifying Kundalini 