Silence is also a method of conversation - The great Unknown Swami and Sasikumar proceed to St. Thomas Church, Chennai

Silence is also a method of conversation - 
The great Unknown Swami and Sasikumar proceed to St. Thomas Church, Chennai

The morning in Adyar did not wake up so much as it erupted. By seven-thirty, the intersection near the Sangeetha restaurant was already a roiling sea of yellow auto-rickshaws, city buses billowing blue smoke, and IT professionals on scooters weaving through the gaps like quicksilver. The humidity was already a presence, a damp towel draped over the shoulders of the city, but inside the restaurant, there was a different kind of rhythm.

It was the percussion of heavy stainless-steel plates hitting granite tabletops and the rhythmic sh-sh-sh of the coffee master "pulling" filter coffee in the front stall, the liquid leaping in a brown arc between tumbler and davara to create that essential, stiff froth.

Sasikumar sat wedged into a corner table, his massive frame making the plastic-molded chair look like a child’s toy. His dark, muscular arms, seasoned by years of wrestling a heavy steering wheel through the chaotic arteries of Madras traffic, were folded neatly beside his plate. He had already made short work of a mound of fluffy Upma and two crisp Medu Vadas that had been submerged in a pool of aromatic, drumstick-scented sambar. He was a man built for endurance, but today, his usual restless energy was tempered by the presence of the man sitting across from him.

Opposite him, the Unknown Swami was eating with a delicate, almost surgical precision. He had ordered the Appams—three of them, with their lacy, fermented edges and soft, pillowy centers—served with a bowl of spicy, coconut-based Vada Curry. Along with the tiffin, he was already sipping at his first cup of strong filter coffee, the steam rising to meet his thick, dark grey hair—an enviable, full crop that defied his years and shimmered under the harsh glare of the tube lights.

The great unknown Swami and Sasikumar having tiffen

at Adyar in Chennai before going to St. Thomas Church

(Image generated by Gemini AI)

"The Vada Curry here has a certain... stubbornness to it today, Sasikumar," Swami remarked, dabbing a piece of the soft Appam into the thick, textured gravy. "It refuses to be ignored. It demands the palate's full attention. Much like the city itself."

Sasikumar wiped his military moustache with a paper napkin, his dark eyes watching the elderly man with a mix of reverence and curiosity. "Everything in Chennai demands attention, Saar. If you don't give it, you get run over. That is the law of the road. But you... you seem to be looking at something else entirely. Even when you're eating, it's like you're listening to a conversation happening in another room. Or perhaps another decade."

Swami chuckled, the sound soft and resonant. "Perhaps I am, Sasi. But isn't that what we all do? We live in the noise, but we survive on the echoes. We are all just radios tuned to different frequencies, trying to find a station that doesn't have static."

He gestured to the waiter for his second cup of coffee. It arrived in the traditional brass davara and tumbler, the metal polished to a dull gold. Swami didn't drink it immediately; he watched the froth settle, his walking stick—the thick, curved-handle rosewood—leaning against the table like a silent third companion.

"Sasikumar," Swami said, his tone shifting into a lower, more reflective register. "You were asking earlier about our route. You seemed... perplexed that I wanted to go to St. Thomas Church before we visited the Kapaleeshwarar Temple."

Sasikumar leaned in, his voice a low rumble that sat beneath the clatter of the restaurant. "It’s just... it’s the opposite direction of the flow, Saar. Usually, people who want the Goddess go straight to Mylapore. St. Thomas Church is the Saint’s territory. The sea breeze and the high spires... it’s a different kind of energy altogether. I was wondering why a man like you, who carries the walking stick of a wanderer and the aura of the old hills, needs to stop at the Church first."

Swami took a sip of the second coffee, his eyes closing for a brief second as the bitterness hit. "I am meeting a friend there. Or rather, I am meeting the memory of a fellow learner. Do you remember that I had told you about an old friend in the Church? He is a strange person, Sasi. He communicates without talking. We can sit alongside one another for hours, and we usually do not have anything to talk about in the way the world understands 'talk.' But the sharing of energy... that is very obvious. It is like two magnets placed near each other. You don't see the pull, but you feel the tension in the air."

Sasikumar nodded, his memory clicking into place. "The one who was an active priest but is now content to remain only as a devotee in the church? The one you said looks happy and relaxed despite having no 'status' left? It stayed with me, Saar. I’ve been thinking about it all night while I was parked at the Palmgrove Hotel where you were staying in Nungambakkam. I watched the elite cars come and go, the people looking so stressed, and I thought of your friend—the one who doesn't advertise, but the orders come to him anyway."

"Well," Swami continued, his gaze drifting to the canvas briefcase resting on the chair beside him, "that man and I go back many years. We met during a ten-day Vipassana course right here in Chennai, years ago. Then later, we sat together for a fourteen-day course. In those courses, Sasi, we are not allowed to speak. Total silence. Noble Silence, they call it. We sat in a hall with a hundred others, eyes closed, observing the breath, observing the sensations of the body. No looking at each other. No gestures. No nodding in the hallway. Just the raw encounter with one's own mind."

Sasikumar looked skeptical, his large hands tracing the rim of his empty plate. "Ten days without talking? I would explode, Saar. My tongue would turn into a snake and bite me. Even in the taxi, I have to talk to the road, to the engine, to the idiots in the rickshaws."

"It feels that way at first," Swami smiled, a gentle crinkling at the corners of his eyes. "The mind becomes a screaming child, demanding candy, demanding attention, demanding a fight. But after a week, something happens. The noise doesn't stop—Chennai is still Chennai—but you move to the center of the wheel. My friend at the church, he was the one who taught me that you don't have to fight the chaos. You just have to stop being the fuel for it. If there is no fuel, the fire eventually becomes just a light."

Swami signaled for Sasikumar to finally have his first cup of strong filter coffee. The big man accepted it, the brass tumbler looking tiny in his grip.

"He used to spend his lunch hours at the St. Thomas Church back then, even when he was a regular priest," Swami said, his voice dropping to that 'well-worn silk' quality. "He is a Christian, and I am not... well, I am what I am. But he told me that the silence inside those white walls was 'heavy.' He said it felt like a buffer. Like a thick layer of cotton wool between him and the teeth of the world."

"A buffer," Sasikumar repeated the word, tasting it. "Like the shock absorbers on my taxi. Without them, every pothole on the Mount Road would break my spine."

"Exactly," Swami said. "He told me that most people live their lives with their skin peeled off. Every touch is a burn. Every word is a cut. We react because we have no protection. We seek revenge because we are wounded. We demand justice because we feel the world owes us a healing. But he... he found a way to grow his skin back. He told me that during that fourteen-day course, he had a vision of his own life as a series of unnecessary explosions. He realized he didn't need to be the one holding the match."

Sasikumar watched the Swami pour his coffee from the tumbler to the davara with a steady hand, the stream of brown liquid perfectly vertical, a miniature waterfall of caffeine.

"So why the church today, Saar?" Sasikumar asked. "If he is a devotee now and intent on his way of prayer or dhyana, why are you meeting him today?"

"Because he is at a crossroads again," Swami replied cryptically. "And because the Church is where he first understood the manner in which to explore his inner mind. You see, Sasi, most people's thoughts are just better versions of their current nightmares. More money, a bigger house, a faster car. They think prayer is a shopping list they hand to God. But a truly contrary thought to prayer and ritual is to be comfortable in the 'Now.' To look at a situation that should make you angry—a man cutting you off in traffic, a customer insulting you—and to feel nothing but a quiet curiosity. To not react is the most bold, most revolutionary act a human can perform."

Sasikumar looked out at the street. The scene was pure friction. A bus conductor was screaming at a motorcyclist who had leaned too close. A woman was haggling fiercely over the price of jasmine strings, her face contorted in a mock-battle for ten rupees.

"It sounds like a superpower, Saar," Sasikumar muttered. "To not react. To just... let the flame be, but not let it get close."

"It is," Swami agreed. "But it requires a total abandonment of the past. We react because we remember. We remember that 'this type of person' always cheats us, or 'that type of situation' always leads to trouble. We live in the 'truth' of yesterday. But yesterday's truth is today's lie, Sasikumar. The only truth is the steam rising from this cup. The only truth is your hand on that table. The moment you link your identity to a past grievance, you are no longer free. You are a prisoner walking with your own jailer."

The Swami took a final, slow sip of his coffee. He looked refreshed, as if the caffeine was merely a secondary benefit to the internal alignment the conversation had provided. He picked up his rosewood walking stick and placed his canvas briefcase on his lap.

"My friend will be sitting in the pews near the back," Swami said. "He won't talk with me, and I won't tap him on the shoulder. We will just sit in the same silence we shared during those Vipassana days. It is a way of recharging the magnet, you see? Then, once the silence has settled into my bones, I will come out, and you will take me to the Goddess in Mylapore. From the Saint’s silence to the Mother’s fire."

Sasikumar stood up, his height momentarily drawing the eyes of half the restaurant. He felt a strange lightness in his chest, a departure from the usual morning tension he carried in his shoulders like a heavy yoke.

"I'll bring the car around to the front, Saar," Sasikumar said. "The traffic on the Beach Road will be heavy, especially near the Lighthouse, but..." He paused, a small smile playing under his military moustache. "...I think I'll just let it be heavy. I won't try to push it."

Swami nodded approvingly. "Spoken like a man who is starting to understand the bridge. The bridge doesn't care how many cars are on it, Sasi. It just holds."

The drive from Adyar toward San Thome was a transition through the layers of the city's soul. As Sasikumar maneuvered the white sedan onto the Kamaraj Salai, the sprawling expanse of the Marina Beach opened up to their right. The Bay of Bengal was a shimmering, metallic grey under the climbing sun, the waves crashing in a rhythmic pulse that seemed to sync with the Swami’s breathing in the back seat.

"Look at the sea, Sasi," Swami said, his voice drifting forward through the cabin. "It takes in all the city's heat, all its grime, all its noise. And yet, it remains the sea. It doesn't become the dirt. It absorbs and stays silent. That is the ultimate buffer."

Sasikumar steered the car past the statues of Tamil icons lining the promenade. He noticed a group of school children playing near the shore, their laughter lost to the wind. Usually, he would be checking his rear-view mirror every few seconds, cursing the 'share-autos' that darted in and out of lanes. Today, he found himself watching the horizon.

"Saar," Sasikumar called out softly. "You mentioned that your friend at the church is at a crossroads. Is that why he stopped being an active priest? Because he found a different truth than what was in the books?"

"The books are maps, Sasi," Swami replied, his reflection in the mirror showing a gaze that was both far away and intensely present. "But the map is not the territory. He realized that performing the ritual was not the same as experiencing the Presence. He decided that he would rather be a quiet devotee who truly knows the silence than a loud priest who only knows the liturgy. People thought he was failing, that he was losing his 'career.' But look at him now—content, relaxed, magnet-like. He stopped trying to manage God and started allowing God to manage him."

"And the 'audacious dream' you mentioned back at Sangeetha?" Sasikumar asked. "How does one start to dream like that when one has a family to feed and a car to maintain?"

"By dreaming of quality rather than quantity," Swami said. "An audacious dream is not about having a thousand things. It is about having one moment of perfect clarity. If you can drive this car from Adyar to San Thome without once losing your inner peace to a traffic jam, you have achieved something more audacious than a king conquering a neighbor. You have conquered yourself."

The spires of the San Thome Basilica began to rise above the tree line, white and sharp against the blue. It was a Gothic sentinel on the edge of the Indian Ocean, a place where history and faith had calcified into stone.

As Sasikumar slowed the car near the entrance, he felt the 'heavy silence' the Swami had described even before they stepped out. It wasn't the absence of sound—the vendors were still selling beads and candles outside—but an atmospheric pressure of stillness.

"We are here, Saar," Sasikumar said, turning off the engine. The sudden quiet inside the car was startling.

"Wait for me here, Sasi," Swami said, gathering his things. "Observe the people coming out. Don't judge their faces, don't guess their stories. Just watch them as if they are clouds passing over the gopuram. See if you can find the ones who have found their buffer."

As the Swami climbed out and walked toward the church, his rosewood stick clicking softly on the pavement, Sasikumar sat back. He didn't reach for his phone. He didn't look at his watch. He rolled down the window, let the salt air fill the taxi, and for the first time in his career, he simply waited. He wasn't waiting for a fare, or for a green light, or for the end of the day. He was just... waiting.

In the rearview mirror, he caught a glimpse of himself. The military moustache was still there, the dark, heavy features were still there. But the eyes—the eyes looked like they were beginning to see the dust motes dancing in the light, rather than just the obstacles on the road.

The taxi merged into the stillness of the cathedral's shadow, a white bubble of relative peace, waiting for the magnet to return.

(c) Bharat Bhushan

7 April 2026

When the unknown comes too close to be true - The unknown swami and Sasikumar at Mylapore, Chennai

When the unknown comes too close to be true - 
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 unknown Swami and Sasikumar near the 

Kapaleeswarar Temple at Mylapore, Chennai

(Image source - Gemini AI)

“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