The unknown swami and Sasikumar at Mylapore, Chennai
The afternoon sun in Chennai did not so much shine as it leaned, heavy and humid, against the yellow-washed walls of the buildings surrounding the Kapaleeshwarar Temple. In the narrow lanes of Mylapore, the air was a thick soup of camphor, frying ghee, automobile exhaust, and the salt-spray drifting in from the Marina.
Sasikumar sat on a low, backless wooden bench at a corner stall that had no name, only a reputation for the most potent filter coffee in the district. At six-foot-two, with shoulders that seemed to have been carved out of the very basalt of the temple pillars and a military moustache that sat like a stiff black brush above his lip, he looked more like a plainclothes commando than a private taxi driver. His dark skin was beaded with sweat, his eyes fixed on the stainless-steel tumblers being rhythmically "pulled" by the coffee-master behind the counter.
Beside him sat the man known only as the ‘Unknown Swami.’
If you saw him in a crowd, you wouldn’t see him at all. He wore a cream-colored bush shirt, slightly frayed at the collar but impeccably clean, and sensible black trousers. A thick, curved-handle walking stick of polished rosewood leaned against the bench between them. A canvas briefcase and a simple cotton shoulder bag lay at his feet. He looked like a retired postmaster or a bank clerk who had spent forty years counting other people’s money without ever once feeling the urge to keep any for himself.
“The silence at St. Thomas was different today, Sasikumar,” the Swami said. His voice was like well-worn silk—soft, but with a strength that didn't need to shout.
Sasikumar nodded, adjusting his bulk on the narrow bench. He had waited outside the San Thome Cathedral for an hour while the Swami sat within. “It is a long way from the beach to the temple, Swami-ji. One side, the sea and the Saint; the other side, the fire and the Goddess. My taxi felt like a bridge between two worlds today.”
The Swami smiled, his eyes crinkling behind thick glasses. “A bridge is a good thing to be. But the bridge doesn’t choose who walks over it. It just… stays.”
The coffee-master clattered two tumblers onto the stone slab in front of them. The froth was a perfect, bubbly tan.
“You know,” the Swami continued, lifting the hot steel rim with a practiced hand, “a man came to see me this morning. Before we set out. He was a man who had lived his life at a frantic pace—lobbying, advertising, shouting his name into the wind so the world wouldn't forget he existed. And then, he told me, he had a vision. Not a lightning bolt, but a sudden, quiet clarity. He resigned. He left the race. Now, he is a freelancer. He does his business alone, in silence.”
Sasikumar blew on his coffee. “In Chennai? Without shouting? He will starve, Swami-ji. Here, even the jasmine sellers have to scream to be heard.”
“That is what I thought,” the Swami replied, a playful glint in his eye. “But he told me the orders come to him like birds to a feeder. One after the other. He doesn't seek them; they find him. He was like a magnet, Sasikumar. He had obtained a certain spiritual energy—a weightiness of soul—that he clearly deserved. He didn't want to talk about the mechanics of it. He was reticent. But he looked so happy, so relaxed, that I felt… familiar. I felt I had known that look for a thousand years.”
Sasikumar looked at the Swami’s cream bush shirt and then at the chaotic swarm of scooters and rickshaws darting past the stall. A bus honked, a sound like a dying elephant, and a cyclist swerved, cursing under his breath.
“It sounds beautiful, Swami-ji,” Sasikumar said, his voice dropping an octave. “But I am a man of the road. When a man cuts me off in traffic, or a passenger refuses to pay the fair, I feel a fire in my chest. You say he was a magnet. I feel like a dry haystack. One spark, and I am gone. Is it truly so difficult for a person not to react? Why is the reaction so… overwhelming?”
The Swami took a slow sip of the decoction. “It is the most difficult thing in the world, Sasi. We think we are the masters of our house, but we are really just the servants of our reactions. A word is said, and we hit back. An insult is thrown, and we burn. It’s as if our personal attitude and our behavior have become predators that consume us from the inside out.”
“I try to control it,” Sasikumar muttered, his hand tightening around the steel tumbler. “I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles are white. I tell myself: ‘Do not shout. Do not strike.’ But the senses… they are like five wild horses pulling the chariot in different directions.”
“Control is one way,” the Swami mused, looking out at the temple gopuram rising into the hazy sky. “But control is a strain. It is a muscular effort. Perhaps the secret is not in controlling the senses, but in creating buffers. When a flame is too close to the skin, it burns. If you move back, the flame is still there, but the heat is just a glow. We must prevent the flame from being too close. Whether through prayer, or meditation, or simply the bold choice to stay away from the irritant. You see, Sasi, we accelerate toward chaos because we think we have to be part of the friction.”
The Swami leaned forward, his walking stick shifting slightly. “I heard something yesterday that stayed with me. It was about our instincts. We have two very powerful, very ancient drivers. The first is the thirst for revenge. ‘He hurt me, so I must hurt him.’ The second is more subtle, more dangerous—the need for justice. ‘He did wrong, so I must ensure he is punished.’ We think seeking justice makes us better than the man seeking revenge. But often, it is just revenge wearing a suit and tie.”
Sasikumar frowned. He had been in the army before the taxi business. The concept of justice was his bedrock. “But without justice, Swami-ji, the world is a jungle. If I do not demand what is right, then the wrong-doer wins.”
“Does he?” The Swami asked softly. “Look at the cost of your demand, Sasi. You seek justice because you have an opinion about what is right and wrong with the world. You think you know you are correct. But while you are busy being ‘correct,’ you are losing your joy. You are losing the present moment. We forget that the only truth—the only absolute, unshakeable reality—is right now. This coffee. This heat. The sound of that bell. Everything in the past, including the insult that happened five minutes ago, is no longer true. It is a ghost. Why do you let a ghost drive your taxi?”
Sasikumar looked at the Swami’s canvas briefcase. It was bulging with papers, perhaps manuscripts or old letters. He thought of his own life—the years of discipline, the anger he carried for the system, the small vengeances he took on the road.
“You are saying,” Sasikumar began slowly, “that to find joy, I have to stop being the judge of the world?”
“I am saying that you should have a perfect idea instead,” the Swami replied. “Not a perfect reaction, but a perfect idea. The idea needs to be linked to a dream—a dream that is absolutely bold and audacious. That businessman I met… his dream wasn't to be rich. His dream was to be still. To be a magnet. He stopped committing himself to the 'justice' of the marketplace and committed himself to the 'truth' of his own peace.”
A young boy in a ragged shirt came by, collecting the used tumblers with a loud clatter. The Swami watched him with an expression of profound tenderness.
“Revenge is a loop,” the Swami continued. “Justice is often a wall. But the 'Now'… the 'Now' is an open door. If you stop reacting, Sasi, you stop being a victim of the world’s chaos. You become the atmosphere through which the chaos passes without leaving a mark.”
Sasikumar sat in silence for a long time. He watched a woman in a bright kanjivaram saree walk toward the temple, her hair adorned with a string of fresh jasmine. He smelled the flowers. He felt the heat of the sun on his arms. He noticed, for the first time, that the Swami hadn't checked his watch once during the entire journey.
“I have always thought that to be strong, I must be like iron,” Sasikumar said, his voice now a mere murmur. “But iron rusts when the rain falls. You are telling me to be like the air.”
“Air cannot be cut by a sword, Sasi. It cannot be burned by fire. It simply is.”
The Swami picked up his rosewood walking stick and stood up. He moved with a surprising lightness for a man of his years. He adjusted the cotton bag on his shoulder and looked at the crowded street.
“Shall we go?” the Swami asked. “I believe there is a sunset we are meant to see from the back seat of a very well-driven taxi.”
Sasikumar stood, towering over the elderly man. He reached out, not to take the Swami’s arm—for the Swami clearly didn't need help—but to hold the briefcase.
“Swami-ji,” Sasikumar said as they walked toward the parked car, “that man you met… the magnet. Did he really look that happy?”
The Swami stopped and looked up at the big man. “He looked like a man who had realized that yesterday is a lie and tomorrow is a rumor. He looked like a man who was finally, for the first time, standing right where his feet were.”
As Sasikumar opened the door for the Unknown Swami, he didn't check the rearview mirror to see who was behind him. He didn't curse the rickshaw that cut him off. He simply turned the key, felt the vibration of the engine, and for the first time in many years, he didn't feel the need to go anywhere at all, even as the car began to move. He was already there.
(c) Bharat Bhushan
7 April 2026
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