Mihika was six years old when she decided Ganpati Bappa couldn’t swim, and that this was a problem only she had noticed.

It happened on the last evening of Chaturthi, when her family walked to the river with their idol — a plump, smiling Ganpati with a painted crown — balanced on her father’s shoulder. The whole lane was doing the same thing, walking toward the water instead of away from it, which even at six struck her as strange. You don’t walk your favorite things toward a river. You keep them close, where it’s safe.

She had asked her grandmother about it days earlier. “Aji, why do we bring Bappa home and then send him away again?”

Her grandmother, folding laundry, hadn’t looked up. “He never really leaves, beta. He goes back to where he came from, so he can come again next year. It’s not goodbye. It’s phir milenge — see you soon.”

Mihika had nodded, satisfied, the way children accept answers that sound complete even when they aren’t.

But standing at the riverbank, watching one idol after another go under the brown water while everyone cheered and threw flowers, her satisfaction cracked completely.

“Papa,” she said, tugging his sleeve. “Bappa can’t swim. Nobody’s holding his hand.”

Her father laughed gently. “He won’t drown, beta. It’s just clay. It goes back into the earth.”

“But his eyes are open,” Mihika said, her voice already shaking. “He’s looking right at me and nobody’s helping him.”

It was her great-grandfather who finally crouched beside her — ninety-one, slow-moving, rarely speaking at these gatherings anymore. He took her hand and walked her to the water’s edge, past the mild panic of the family behind him.

“I used to think exactly what you’re thinking,” he said. “Every year, since I was smaller than you.”

“My mother told me something once, and I’ll tell you the same. He’s not drowning, beta. He’s arriving. This river is his home — the one he left to come sit with us for ten days, eat our modaks, listen to our songs, watch over our small, noisy lives. Now he’s tired, and he wants to rest. He’s smiling under the water because he already knows the ending. He knows we’ll miss him. He knows we’ll call him back next year. So this isn’t the sad part. It’s the part where he trusts us completely to bring him home again.”

“How does he know we’ll bring him back?”

“Because he isn’t watching the water, beta. He’s watching you. The love in your face right now — that’s what he takes with him. Not the clay, not the crown. Just that. And that’s exactly what he brings back next year, a little bigger, because you kept it safe for him.”

Mihika considered this the way children consider things that have finally been explained properly. Then she let go of her father’s hand, walked to the water’s edge alone, and instead of crying, she waved.

“Bye, Bappa. Come back next year. I’ll practice being good so you’re proud.”

The idol went under quietly. The crowd cheered, as it always does. But her great-grandfather, watching her wave at an empty river with her whole small heart, thought that in ninety-one years of visarjan evenings, he had never seen anyone send Bappa off with a truer prayer than that.

That night, tucked into bed, she asked one more question before sleep took her. “Aji, does Bappa remember me?”

Her grandmother put down the laundry this time, and looked at her properly.

“He remembers whoever remembers him first, beta. That’s the whole secret. It was never about the size of the idol, or the crown, or how loud the drums were at the river. It was only ever about who kept a little space open for him in their heart, all year round, waiting.”

Mihika fell asleep smiling, already, quietly, keeping that space open.

।। गणपती बाप्पा मोरया, पुढच्या वर्षी लवकर या ।।
(Ganpati Bappa Morya, come again next year, come soon)