The young Nanak is now seven years old. He has an innocent way, distributes all he can get to others. Father Mehta Kalu used to smile at these acts of the child, but as the years passed and Nanak’s habit did not diminish, he grew quite restless Calling in Gopal Panda, the village teacher, he places Nanak under his charge. Panda begins his teaching with numerals, but the young boy wants to know the meaning of the spiritual phrase, Om Namah. In a sarcastic vein, Gopal Panda advises Nanak to concentrate on arithmetic, which he will need when he looks after the books of account of his family’s trading business. Taking up his slate, Nanak begins to scribble and recite:
Burn want and attachment, and grind it into ink. Rid your intelligence of false pretense,and make it the purest of paper.
Make the love of the Lord your pen, and let your consciousness be the scribe.
Then, seek the Guru’s instructions, and record these deliberations.
Write the praises of the His name over and over again-
that He has no end or limitation.
O wise one, write such an account,
that when it is asked for, you are anointed with the Mark of Truth.
Nanak’s mother’s sister visited, and she sees him sitting near the pond, talking about truth, while sharing all that he had with some needy persons. “Nanak seems quite unbalanced to me. All the time he is giving away our possessions to others. I worry that he will now become altogether mad,” she complains to her sister. Nanak gently assures her that her own son will grow up to be just as crazy! It is a historical fact the maasi’s son and Nanak’s cousin grew up to be Baba Ram Thaman, a great acetic saint of Kasur. A shrine to commemorate him exists in village Kalu Khara in Kasur, where Vaisakhi is celebrated till this day, and finds mention even in the folk songs of the region.