There was a woman who carried her husband's dinner out to him every day, along the bank of the river Ravi.
She was young and strong, and had never been to school a day in her life. She carried the food in an earthen pot on her head, and walked the same path there and back, and that was her life, and it was a good enough one.
But for the last three days something had been happening on that path.
There was music coming across the water.
It came from the far bank, a long way off, but it reached her. And it was not like anything she had ever heard, and she had heard plenty. She sang herself. She had sat up all night singing at weddings. She knew the love songs and the harvest songs and the tunes the fiddlers played in the street.
This was none of those.
And on the third day she found she could not walk home.
She sat down on a fallen tree with the empty pot beside her, and put her hands together on her knees, and looked across the river, and listened, and forgot the time.
When the music stopped at last she let out a long breath.
And she thought: I do not want to lose this.
I would go without food to keep this, she thought. I would give away everything I own. Is there a way to take this feeling and put it inside me and lock the door.
Then she thought: who would I even ask. I am a village woman. If I told my husband he would say I had gone mad.
But she got up anyway, and went round, and walked over to see.
There was one man sitting there with an instrument across his lap, looking at the river.
Brother, she said. Was that you playing.
Yes, sister, said Bhai Mardana Ji.
Who are you.
I am the Lord's servant.
Are you from this world or not, she said.
I am a person, sister. Same as you.
No, she said, and I think you are telling me stories. I have watched you sitting here three days. If you were like us you would have lit a fire. You would have gone for food. You would have eaten something.
Well, said Bhai Mardana Ji, I can go without food sometimes, and my Guru Ji lives on the music. But we do eat. Bread, milk, butter, all of it. And I am hungry at this moment, since you ask.
Then she said, quietly: brother, if I bring milk, will you drink it.
Yes, sister, said Bhai Mardana Ji, and there were tears in his eyes. I would love some milk. Do not think we are anything but people. The one I follow was sent here by the Lord. But I am a person, and I have a sister at home who is rather like you.
So she went, and came back with a pot of milk on her head and a bowl of sugar on top, walking fast, her cheeks pink with the pleasure of having something to give.
And when she got there the music had started again.
Her feet went soft. She sat down on the ground without meaning to, and her head bowed by itself, and she looked at the one who was singing and forgot to blink.
At last she got up and set the milk down in front of them.
And the singer opened his eyes and said one word.
Daughter.
She did not know where the voice had come from. It seemed to go straight into her.
O child, he said.
Yes, she said, very softly.
What have you brought.
Milk, she said. And sugar. Please. You have not eaten for three days.
You drink it, said Guru Nanak Dev Ji. You are hungry for a son, and for money.
She said nothing, because it was true, and nobody had ever said it out loud.
Please, she said after a while. Give me instead the thing I felt just now. That is what your musician meant. Do not let it go away from me. I am a village woman and I know nothing. But your singing is nectar.
My child, said Guru Ji, drink the milk.
Goodnight. She could not read a word, and she heard it from right across the river.