परम्परा the lineage
Handed down, hand to hand.
For as long as anyone in our family can remember, there has been a desk like this one — a lamp, a ledger of charts, and someone bent over both. The vidyā has moved through our house for hundreds of years: grandfather to father to son, teacher to student, hand to hand.
We are the Atrays of Ludhiana. Between us we read charts, set homes right with the directions, perform the old rites correctly, and teach students who now practice far beyond Punjab.
One belief holds it together: the chart describes; it does not sentence. The sky writes in tendencies. The choosing stays with you.