They went down to the river to watch the last of the light.

Thatha walked slowly, leaning on Kiran's shoulder, and they found their usual flat rock at the water's edge. The Krishna river was very still that evening. The whole sky lay reflected in it — the deep blue overhead, the last streak of gold in the west, the first faint star, all of it doubled and shining on the dark, smooth water.

Kiran had been thinking all day about the wonders Thatha had read him. The sun and the ocean. The mountain and the holy river. The brave heart and the bright star. So many glories, each one a spark of the One.

"Thatha," he said, "Krishna names all those amazing things. The biggest and brightest of everything. But then what does he say at the very end?"

Thatha was quiet for a moment, watching the river. "He says," the old man murmured, "*but why do you need all these details, Arjuna?* And then he says the greatest thing in the whole chapter."

"What?"

"He says: I hold up this entire universe — all of it, every star and sea and mountain and creature — with a single fragment of myself."

Kiran turned this over. "Only a *fragment?* He holds up *everything* with just one small piece of himself?"

"Only one small piece, kanna. The whole shining universe, resting on the least little part of him. Imagine how vast the rest of him must be."

Kiran sat very still. Then, slowly, he leaned down to the river and cupped both his hands and lifted a little water. And there — in the small bowl of his two brown hands — was the whole sky. The blue. The gold. The first trembling star. All of it, held in a handful of river.

He looked up, his eyes wide. "Thatha. Look. The whole sky — it fits in my hands."

Thatha looked. And he smiled the deep, slow smile that meant his grandson had understood something true.

"Yes," he said softly. "The whole sky in your two small hands. That is how the One holds the universe, kanna. Easily. Lightly. With just a fragment. Everything you have ever seen, everything you will ever love — the whole great rolling world — rests in the smallest part of him, the way the whole sky rests in that little handful of water."

Kiran held the water carefully, not wanting to spill a single star. The river slid past. The light faded. And the boy and his grandfather sat together on the warm rock, holding the sky between them, while the One who held them both — easily, lightly, with a single fragment — held the whole quiet evening in his hands.