“Tell me what you have been doing.” The saffron-robed man ordered and the boy, who was sitting beside him, stiffened for a moment.

“I-I have been trying to visualise my image.” The boy answered as his fingers twitched. “How I look, how I dress, my features, my appearance.”

The man sighed as he rubbed his forehead. “Is that what you think you are?”

The child’s brows furrowed as he stared at the gaunt man sitting in front of him. “I-Is that not?”

The man looked at the child for a moment before he went into the house came back with a basket made up of some sort of tree fibre. If Kiran hadn’t known better, he would have thought it was a bamboo basket.

“Use this basket to water the plants in my garden.” The man threw the basket at the child and turned away.

“You are to only use that basket and nothing else. You can only draw the water from the lake near your house and nowhere else.” The man walked back into the house. “If you can water the plants daily, you will know who you are.”

The child stared slack-jawed at the back of the retreating man. And then his gaze lowered at the basket in his hands.

‘How…is this even possible?’ The boy’s eyes were wide as he stared at the woven basket in his hands. The basket was made of woven plant fibre but the weaves were not tightly knit.

Instead, the entire basket was littered with holes. This thing had been clearly designed to carry solid objects. It had definitely not been designed to fetch water.

Kiran stared at the basket, then at his teacher’s garden and then off into the distance where his hut was located.

Just hopelessness remained in his eyes.

0.0

Hours turned into days and days turned into weeks as the time continued to pass.

The boy had been mulling over the task his teacher gave him but the more he thought about it the more impossible he found it.

“Just how is this supposed to be done?! Guru Ji gave it to me, so clearly can be done. But how?!” The preteen muttered to himself as he stared at the water-soaked basket. “There has to be another way!”

The boy had initially tried to run with the water-filled basket but that just ended up with him watering the road and achieved nothing else.

He had then tried to leave the bucket into the water to soak so that the fibre swelled up and clogged the pores but that idea had also ended up being a bust as pores had indeed swelled up but that had not been enough.

The boy had now run out of ideas to try and the hopelessness had once again begun to creep into him.

“Just how should it be done!” The boy screamed and kicked the basked which promptly fell into the lake.

The boy glowered at the basket as the basket began floating away. As the basket floated, it soaked water and became heavy. Water began to fill within the basket and the basket began to sink.

Kiran’s eyes widened and he hastily jumped into the water to fish the basket out. But he was already too late and by the time he reached the spot, the basket had already reached the bottom of the lake.

Kiran wide eyes almost popped out and he dived deeper into the lake. It was only after the boy had spent quite some time searching the lake that he found the basket on the lake floor, stuck in clay.

Kiran heaved out a sigh of relief and swam out with the basket. Though, as he sat down on the shore, he looked at the basket strangely. The water within the basket that should have been seeping out of it, remained where it was.

It didn’t leak out. It didn’t seep out. It remained within the basket.

The dark-skinned boy’s eyed widened once again and he hurriedly lifted the basket to observe it. The more he looked, the more his eyes widened. ‘Is this it? Is this the answer!’

The boy stared at the clay that had clogged the pores of the basket. And with the pores clogged, the basket was able to hold the water. “This-this yes! Yes! Yes!!”

The boy laughed and immediately dove into the lake again to dig out some more clay. Once the clay had been collected, the boy covered the basket entirely in clay until it seemed more like a clay basket rather than a fibre one.

With the basket covered, the preteen left the basket in the sun to let it dry and then the child eagerly waited for the next couple of days.

0.0

The saffron-clad man watched the dark-skinned boy watered the garden with the clay covered basket and he smiled. He walked out of the cottage and the child instantly stopped pouring water and greeted the gaunt man.

“Why do you think you succeeded?” The man asked the boy and child furrowed his brows in thought.

The child remained silent for quite a few moments but the gaunt man did not push for the answer and waited patiently.

“Because I-because I made use of the…opportunity?” The child answered but by the time the sentence ended, the answer had turned into a question itself.

“Hmm.” The dark-skinned man’s brows furrowed. “Why do you were able to make use of the opportunity?”

“Be-because I-” The child began but the man raised his hand and stopped the child.

“There is no hurry. Take all the time that you need to think.” The man encouraged. “I will be here to listen when you are ready.”

The child stopped to truly think about the question. He remained silent for quite a while and the man remained seated next to him. The grey-haired man did not move and the child remained lost in thought.

Perhaps, if the child had been older and had more experience, he would have been able to answer the question right away. But the child was a mere 13-year-old boy and it took him quite a while to think through his thoughts.

Time passed and the boy that had come to water the plant with the first rays of the Sun, sat there thinking as the last rays of the sun bid the world goodbye. Alongside the boy, sat the man in saffron robes.

They sat there until the boy finally looked up at the man and answered. “It is because I never gave up. It is because I persisted.”

The boy didn’t stammer even once. The boy did not lose his confidence even once. The answer didn’t become the question even once. And the saffron-clad man smiled.

“Then, are you perhaps someone who persists?” The Guru asked his pupil.

“Yes.” The pupil replied. “I am.”

“Then that is your answer.” The man nodded and got up. “That is who you are.”

-X-

Within a desolate desert, inside a dilapidated shop, on a simple chair, a youth seemingly slept.

-X-