Very early in the morning, before the sun, when you can still see the stars and Venus is bright in the east and the breeze is soft, a well is turning.
Two bullocks are yoked to a beam and walking round and round, and the wheel is bringing up pot after pot of water and tipping it into the channel. The channel carries it to the aqueduct, the aqueduct throws it into a pit, and from there a little stream runs off into the fields.
And the well makes a noise as it goes round. Zoon, zoon, zoon.
Except that if you sit with it long enough it stops sounding like zoon zoon.
It starts sounding like you. You. You.
On one of the driver's seats a boy of twelve is fast asleep, which is what happens if you have to get up in the dark. On the other seat there is a young man, solid and calm, patting the bullocks now and then.
And he is reciting.
The water channel runs on through a grove of berry trees, and in that grove there is a raised platform where the owners of the well sit in the hot months to eat and lie down in the shade.
For some days now, somebody else has been sitting on that platform in the early morning.
He is a Muslim priest. His name is Salaar Din.
He is not reading anything. He is not saying his own prayers. He is simply sitting there with his eyes shut, because of the sound coming across the field: the turning of the well and the voice of the young man, going together, the wheel keeping time.
Some of the words he understands. Most he does not. It does not seem to matter.
On this particular morning the young man finished his recitation and got up and said a prayer of his own.
O Lord, he said, let me remember your name always. He said it five or six times over.
Then he said, to nobody in particular, the way you repeat something you have been taught: Guru Ji says, recite the Scripture early in the morning, and then keep saying the Lord's name, sitting and standing, all day. Waheguru. Waheguru. Waheguru.
And Guru Ji loves the Sikh, he said, who says that Name in every single breath.
And on the platform, the priest decided that today he was going to ask.
Soon after, the young man's uncle arrived to take the next turn at the well. Off you go home, Bagga Singh, he said. I will manage here. Off you go, brave lad.
So Bagga Singh set off walking home along the water channel, and his way went through the grove.
Brother Bagga Singh, said the priest, standing up. Young man. Can you wait a moment?
Yes, Priest ji, said Bagga Singh. Good morning to you. The Lord is great.
The Lord is great, said Salaar Din, smiling.
Bagga Singh sat down on the edge of the platform, and the old priest sat near him.
Brother, said the priest. What is that Scripture you read here every morning?
And Bagga Singh said: you are older than me, like an uncle. Do not call me brother. Call me your son. I am like your child.
You are very respectful, said Salaar Din. But listen. That Scripture you read makes me want to treat you as the elder one, not the younger. A person feels joy just listening to it.
And now my mind is jumping about wanting to ask, and it will not settle until I do.
What is it? What is that Scripture?
This, said Bagga Singh, is the bani of Beloved Guru Arjan Dev Ji. It is called Sukhmani. It means the pearl of peace.
And the old priest said the thing that shows he had been listening more closely than anybody knew.
Is that so, he said. I was almost certain it must be Guru Nanak Dev Ji's.
His name is in it, you see. All the way through it.