I stayed silent, watching Arjun's hands shape the stone. Each strike of the hammer sounded like a pulse, a rhythm older than memory itself.
"Do you know what you are holding?" he asked, gesturing toward the sundial. I shook my head.
"This," he said, tracing the Sanskrit carvings, "is part of the Kāla Chakra — the Wheel of Time. Kāla means time, anantah means endless. And Karma… that's the law of cause and effect. Every action spins this wheel, every effect returns to its source."
I frowned. "So… everything I do… comes back?"
"Yes," he said, his voice soft. "And not just actions. Thoughts, intentions, even anger or love. That is Rta — the cosmic order. Everything has its place and rhythm. Disturb the order, and the wheel wobbles."
I traced the sundial again. Its cracks seemed deeper, almost alive. "But… why did it pull me here?"
Arjun paused. "Some stones carry memory. Some rituals, when completed in truth, open doors between moments. This sundial… it needed someone who could give it Rakta — blood, the truth of life. That is why you are here."
I shivered as the rain tapped on the temple roof like whispered prayers.
He returned to carving. "See this idol?" he said, pointing to the half-finished Natarāja, the dancing Shiva. "Every proportion, every angle, every curve is measured. From the angula-traya pramāṇam — the three-finger measurement — to the nābhi-sthānam, the placement of the navel — these details matter. The gods live in these rules. Break them, and the deity loses life."
I swallowed. "And my father… he broke them?"
Arjun's hands faltered. "Not broken. Distorted. Even the best sculptor can lose his way. But what is lost can sometimes be returned, if someone understands the law behind it."
I nodded slowly, feeling the weight of the stone, the temple, and my own blood on the sundial. And then he spoke words that echoed like a mantra:
"Karmanye vadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachana, ma karma-phala-hetur bhurmatey sangostva akarmani."
(You have the right to work only, but never to its fruits. Let not the fruits of action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction.) — Bhagavad Gita 2.47
I didn't fully understand at first, but it sank in slowly: I could act, but I could not control what would happen. Even my blood on this sundial was a small step in a much larger cycle.
Arjun looked at me, his eyes steady. "Do you see it now? Time is not a straight line. The Gita says we must act, not cling to results. The wheel turns, the law of karma moves. You are part of it."
I nodded, though fear and wonder twisted inside me. "I think… I'm part of it."
He smiled. "Yes. And the wheel has begun to turn because of you."
That night, I lay on the cold temple floor, listening to the rain, the stones, the whispered Sanskrit carved into the walls. I was a daughter of time, caught between two worlds, and for the first time, I felt the weight — and the possibility — of changing it.