Chapter 18: The Return of the Guru

At fifty-two, Ishaan Sharma sat wrapped in a warm woollen shawl, the late afternoon sun spilling golden light over his verandah. Nestled within the folds of the hills, his wooden home overlooked terraced pines and meandering clouds. It was here, after an early retirement, that he had chosen to spend his quieter years—closer to silence, and closer to the Self.

A cup of steaming tulsi chai by his side, he opened his favorite book once again—the one he had authored decades ago, She Who Became My Guru. With practiced fingers, he turned the worn pages until he reached Chapter 18: The Return of the Guru.

As his eyes glided over the title, the real world faded. Time folded inwards. The chapter wasn’t just being read. It was being lived. Every memory became as vivid and alive as if the present had agreed to merge with the past.

After the Tantra-infused reconnection with the divine feminine in the previous spiral of time, Ishaan found himself subtly rethreading forgotten threads of childhood, teenage dreams, and ancestral warmth. Back on Earth with his family aboard their metallic blue space car, he was granted urgent lunar leaves—partly because of the marriage invitation, but mostly because the inner pulse of the soul often chose peculiar timings for its return journeys.

The reunion at Govind’s ancestral home in Himachal was nothing short of magical. The crisp air, the scent of deodars, and the vivid hustle of marriage rituals—it all came together like a painting infused with laughter.

The celebrations were vibrant. Lanterns floated like starlit jellyfish above the courtyard. Laughter bounced between stone walls that had seen five generations grow, marry, and pass. Amidst the bhangra beats and teasing aunts, Ishaan noticed something deep—no Myra. She wasn’t part of this celebration, and yet her essence hung in the air like a forgotten fragrance. Perhaps that’s what gave the evening its hushed undertone of mysticism.

At the function, Ishaan met Ranjana, his cousin sister, who had arrived separately with some of his old Pine Crest School classmates. Their presence stirred a bubbling joy within him.

“Ishaan! Remember the time we convinced Mr. Dutt that the science lab skeleton had started blinking?” Vinod laughed, clapping Ishaan on the back.

“Oh, and Gagan spilled blue ink all over Principal ma’am’s white sari. Accidentally, of course,” Anjali chimed in.

They laughed so hard their eyes watered. Ranjana, standing beside Ishaan, nodded with affection. “Those were golden days. Who would’ve thought our paths would circle back like this?”

Later, Ishaan and Ranjana took a slow walk through the orchard behind the house, the ground strewn with early apples.

“Do you remember Govind’s mischief?” Ranjana asked, her eyes twinkling.

“How can I forget?” Ishaan replied with a grin. “He was like little Krishna, incarnated in full naughtiness.”

They began recounting episodes: how Govind once stole laddoos from the prasad thali and cleverly blamed a dog. Or when he put alarm clocks in every cupboard of their home just to create ‘a musical morning.’ And how, during a family havan, he had mischievously added color powder into the smoke to create ‘divine rainbow blessings.’

They burst into laughter. Even the trees seemed to smile. Ranjana while holding her belly grinned, ” too much laughter makes one forget to breathe!” Ishaan chuckled. “Just like Govind’s mischief used to do—remember how he replaced nanaji’s walking stick with a sugarcane pole?” “Oh yes!” Ranjana laughed, covering her mouth. “And when he added glue to his teacher’s chalk on result day!”
Both laughed until their sides ached, walking slowly under a velvet sky where constellations formed their own mandalas.

As the ceremony buzzed in the background, Ishaan sat down under a flowering pear tree. A sudden wave of stillness took over. Myra’s absence was profound, yet strangely peaceful. The earth hummed with memory.

It was then, while watching an old lamp flickering in the garden temple, that it happened.

A wave of energy rose within him, like a returning tide. It began in the spine and unfurled upward like a serpent of light. But this time, unlike before, it didn’t crash over him. It was gentle. Familiar. Guided by love.

Suddenly, the image of his grandfather, the original Guru, returned with startling clarity.

The voice was inner, yet audible:

“Reading the Puranas is far more rewarding than watching them. For when you read, your mind paints its own pictures—pictures born from your own subconscious. And these dissolve it lovingly. But when you watch them on screens, you are caged in someone else’s imagination, which might not align with your inner samskaras. It adds new layers rather than dissolving the old.”

The words struck him like truth wrapped in poetry. He remembered how his grandfather, in his simple dhoti and sacred thread, would sit under the neem tree and read out loud from the Bhagavatam, smiling gently at the clouds.

This was not the first time Ishaan had felt his energy rise. But it was only the second time it had completed the circle—reaching not just to the ajna chakra, but flowering in the heart. The sensation was different now. He was no longer chasing realization. It had arrived like a homecoming.

He folded his hands inwardly.

“Thank you, Dadaji,” he whispered.

There was no mystical thunder, no halo of divine light. Only an overwhelming sweetness, like a flute playing in the silence.

A few feet away, Vedika approached with a cup of coffee. She sat beside him quietly, watching the light play on his face.

“You look… somewhere else,” she said gently.

“I’m exactly where I belong,” he replied.

She smiled. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”

There was a pause, warm and weightless.

Then she asked, softly, “But tell me… what brought you here?”

Ishaan glanced at the sky, then turned to her. “This awakening happened because we remembered something from the past.”

Vedika tilted her head. “You mean a memory?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes. Awakening is nothing other but deeply remembering something—or someone.”

She watched him, the depth in his eyes like still water. “And then?”

“When the intensity of that remembrance crosses a certain threshold,” he said, “it transforms into self-realisation.”

Vedika looked away, as if the words had opened something within her. “So… we don’t really become something new. We remember who we’ve always been.”

He gave a quiet smile. “Exactly.”

Someone called Vedika to the kitchen. She left quietly, her absence leaving behind a hush that hung in the air. The hollow she left was soon filled as Ranjana and Gagan joined Ishaan. Thereafter, they all stepped onto the rooftop to enjoy the calm evening breeze, the fading light over the hills, and the peaceful silence that settled all around. They both settled beside him with an ease born of old familiarity.

Together, they watched as dusk gently folded into night. The city lights began to twinkle in the distance, but none of them seemed to notice. Ishaan leaned back on his elbows, eyes lost in the sky.

Ranjana broke the silence. “You know, I’ve been thinking… love really isn’t bound by form, is it?”

Ishaan smiled faintly. “Not at all. Love is love. When truly practiced, it can mix with any kind of physical object or being, regardless of its nature, form, or even gender.”

Gagan raised an eyebrow. “Like how your love for Govind shifted onto Myra?”

Ishaan nodded. “Exactly. And if that could happen—if love could move from Govind to Myra—then why couldn’t it move to an imaginary Krishna as well?”

Ranjana looked intrigued. “You mean Krishna as in… a divine figure?”

Ishaan turned to her. “Yes. The strength of my love for Govind was actually reinforced through Krishna. His stories were everywhere in my home growing up—told daily, alive in every corner. And Govind… he reminded me of Krishna, especially the child and boy forms.”

Gagan leaned forward. “That’s an interesting connection. Are you saying the love was shaped by that divine narrative?”

Ishaan smiled. “In a way, yes. The childhood of any being—human or divine—is strikingly similar. Only in God’s case, we add divinity, purity, and a layer of mysticism to make it more contemplative, more meditative. Because God, unlike humans, lacks a physical form. So we shape stories to feel that presence.”

Ranjana nodded slowly. “And when that refined kind of love finds a real human being…”

Ishaan finished her thought, “…it becomes super-contemplative. Because now, that human also brings a physical form—something divine stories never had. That makes it even more powerful.”

Gagan sat back, thoughtful. “So, love isn’t really shifting. It’s flowing—into the forms that allow it to grow, deepen, and reflect.”

Ishaan’s eyes softened. “Yes. Love doesn’t leave. It just takes new shapes.”

Later that night, with the moon rising in the clear sky and the hills echoing with the distant sound of wedding drums, Ishaan stood on the terrace alone. The stars blinked knowingly. The guru hadn’t returned as a person—but as presence.

As the chapter ended within the pages of his book, so too did Ishaan return from the past.

He shut the book slowly, savoring the final sentence like a warm embrace. The verandah was now bathed in twilight. In the valley below, the mist danced like spirit-beings, and a nightjar called from the forest.

“I’m still that boy,” he whispered to himself. “Only… a little more whole.”

And so the day faded gently into night, as Ishaan rose, not older, but newer than ever before.