The Gurus Gift And Other Short Stories

The first one on the rail-track was the father of my children. Then his friends lay alongside him and alongside them were their wives. The engine started whistling frantically from a long distance... The wheels of the train ran over many men. But no one moved from his place. All along the track we chanted: 'Praise be to the Almighty, the Formless One, Praise be...' The chant went on in unison. And then the train went backwards... When we were returning to our village that evening, my mother began to tell my sister the story of the Temple of the Guru's Palm. She told her how the Guru came that way with his disciple: how the disciple thirsted and Guru sent him to the dervish at the top of the hill; how the dervish turned him back three times: how the Guru asked his disciple to pick up a rock; how the spring burst forth from under it and the well of the dervish dried up; how the dervish had hurled the boulder; and how the Guru had said: Praise be to the Almighty, the Formless One, and stopped it with the palm of his hand.