Knowledge

When I was very young and still in school, finishing my homework or doing well on an assignment came with a small reward: a tiny, colorful feather, yellow or pink, tucked into my notebook. Our teachers called it Vidhya, a token the goddess left behind for children who worked hard. I was too young to realize it was possibly staged. That didn’t stop it from working brilliantly on me.

My mother was a disciple of a Guru, and one day the Guru ran into me along with my parents. She asked, almost in passing, what I would wish for if I could have just one thing. I was so taken with Vidhya at the time that I answered, without hesitation, “Vidhya.” My parents were overjoyed, and the Guru looked genuinely surprised.

I remember her picking me up and, later, handing me an apple. She couldn’t get over the fact that a child so young would ask for something like that.

Somehow that memory has stayed with me all these years. I still miss those little feathers showing up in my notebooks, and the sheer joy of finding one whenever it happened.