The morning light came in sideways through the workshop window, falling on a long strip of cream-coloured cloth stretched flat on Thatha's table.

Kiran was supposed to be learning his letters. He had a reed pen in his hand and a small pot of dark Kalamkari dye beside him, and he was already bored.

"Thatha, why do I have to start with 'a' every single time? In Telugu, in Sanskrit, even in English — always 'a' first. Why can't I start with my favourite letter?"

Thatha, who was carefully painting the wing of Garuda onto a temple cloth, did not look up right away. He let the question sit. Then he set down his brush.

"Open your mouth," he said.

Kiran opened his mouth.

"Now make a sound. Any sound. But don't move your tongue, don't close your lips. Just let the air come out."

Kiran tried. "Aaaa," came the sound.

Thatha smiled. "You see? That is 'a'. It is the sound your breath makes all by itself, before you shape it into anything. You cannot say 'ka' or 'ma' or 'ra' without first opening into 'a'. Press your lips and you get 'pa' — but open them again and there it is, 'a', underneath. Every other letter is just 'a' with something added. It is the root of all of them."

Kiran said his own name slowly. "Ki-ran." There it was, hiding in the middle. He tried "Thatha." There too.

"Krishna says, in the Gita," Thatha went on, dipping his pen again, "'Among all the letters, I am A.' He means He is the first thing, the thing every other thing is built upon. Just like every word rests on a breath, the whole world rests on Him. He holds it up from every side at once — like the cloth on this table, held by my hands wherever it would slip."

Kiran looked at the strip of cloth, pinned flat at all four corners. He looked at the open shape of his own breath. He thought about how, no matter what word he tried to say, there was always that one quiet sound waiting at the bottom of it, holding the rest up.

Then he dipped his pen, opened his mouth, breathed out a soft "aaa," and began, at last, to write his very first letter.