New Delhi, March 9 -- My ruminations, my reflections, my meditations, my conversations -- conversations regurgitated after speaking with my mother, a scholar of Vedanta, Advaita Vedanta, Upanishads, the Vedas, the Bhagwat, the Gita -- texts of those who see no duality, who see the entire universe as one. My mother is that scholar. To her, the world is one. And she comes from the lineage of my grandfather, Chaman Lal Bhardwaj, a man who lived till ninety-two, a man whose loss I mourned more than my own father's.

My father, Guru Saran's passing I had made peace with. His days were numbered, his days were precious, and he made each one count. But Nana -- we lost too soon, even at ninety-two. Papa we had lost at sixty-seven, but we had made ...