A Child Walks Out of Kāladi A boy, eight years old, walks out of a coastal Kerala village in the predawn hours. He wears ochre robes. He carries a water pot and a staff. Behind him, a coconut grove rustles in the warm wind. Ahead: the whole of India, and a life's work that would reshape the spiritual geography of a civilisation. This is how the tradition remembers the beginning of Śaṅkarācārya's mission — not with a proclamation or a coronation, but with a barefoot departure. The mother watching him go was weeping. The boy did not look back. He already knew what he was carrying. Born at the Intersection The village of Kāladi sits on the banks of the…