In the peaceful town of Lalgudi, where the fields beyond the railway line turned green after the rains and the squirrels in the neem trees busied themselves without ever consulting a calendar, young Krishnan had begun to suffer from a new kind of worry.
Krishnan finished his schoolwork, yet his mind raced ahead to the marks he might receive. He played cricket with full energy, yet spent the evening fretting over whether his team would win the next match. Even after helping his mother with small chores, he wondered whether anyone had noticed and would praise him.
One evening, sitting on the terrace with Uncle Venkatesh, he confessed, “Uncle, I do the work, but I cannot stop worrying about the results. The anxiety stays with me.”
Uncle Venkatesh opened a worn copy of Walden and read a few lines by Henry David Thoreau:
“The true husbandman (farmer) will cease from anxiety, as the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor every day, relinquishing all claims to the product of his fields, and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but his last fruits also.”
Krishnan listened carefully.
“This,” his uncle explained, “is the same teaching as Karma Yoga. You are entitled to the duty—the labour of the day—but not to the fruits. Finishing the work that is in your control is enough. The outcomes are not in your control. When you truly realise this and relinquish all claims, anxiety begins to fall away.”
The next morning Krishnan decided to practise.
He sat down to his arithmetic with full attention. He worked each sum carefully, checked it once, and then closed the book. He did not sit inventing possible marks or imagining the teacher’s comments. He had finished the labour of the day. The fruit—whatever mark appeared later—he left alone.
At cricket practice he bowled and batted with complete energy. When the game ended he packed his bat and walked home without replaying every ball or worrying about the next week’s match. He had done his part. The result belonged to the larger game.
Even when he helped his younger sister with her homework, he gave his full care and then let the matter rest. He no longer waited for thanks or measured whether the help had been “successful.”
At first the old habit of claiming the fruits returned again and again. His mind would whisper, “But what if the marks are low?” or “What if we lose?” Each time Krishnan gently reminded himself of the squirrels in the neem tree—busy, cheerful, and free of anxiety about next season’s chestnuts—and of Thoreau’s farmer who finished the day’s work and relinquished the harvest in his mind.
Weeks passed. The examination results came. Some were good, some average. The cricket team won a match and lost another. Yet Krishnan discovered that the sharp edge of anxiety had dulled. Because he had already given away the claims to the fruits, neither success nor disappointment could disturb him as deeply as before.
One evening he sat again with Uncle Venkatesh as the sky turned its familiar deep blue.
“Uncle,” he said, “I am learning to finish the labour of each day and then let go. I do not claim the outcomes anymore. It is not easy, but when I manage it, the mind feels lighter. The anxiety slowly ceases.”
Uncle Venkatesh smiled. “That is the heart of Karma Yoga, and of Thoreau’s true husbandman. Do what is yours to do. Relinquish the rest. The squirrels have known this all along.”
In the soft dusk of Malgudi, while other boys still carried the heavy load of expected results, young Krishnan walked home with a quieter heart. He had begun to finish each day’s labour cleanly, surrendering in advance both the first fruits and the last. And in that daily act of relinquishing, he found a peace that no mark-sheet or match result could give—or take away.