The summer sun had softened into gentle heat by the time the monsoon finally settled over our village. I remember walking barefoot through the fields one evening, watching the heavy grey clouds swallow the horizon. The smell of wet earth rose underfoot as the first thunder rumbled. I carried with me a lantern soaked in oil, the wick flickering against the coming darkness. A distant song floated from the temple – a simple prayer in a low male voice – carried by the new breeze that drifted through the open fields.
Rain began to patter on the leaves and my skin, each drop clear and warm. I closed my eyes to feel it fully, listening to its rhythm as if it played on drums of mud. The mosquitoes buzzed around, but I let them bite for a moment, thinking of how life in this village was renewed when the sky opened. I felt grateful for this gentle cleansing. Still, a quiet sadness lingered in me: the pang of understanding that some people here do not wash in rain as freely as I, judged by the caste of my birth. I recall, in that soft dusk, the ache of wanting things to be different for all children.
That night, as I sat by the fire near our huts, I watched my mother's silhouette in the lamplight, her hands steady at the loom, weaving cotton into cloth. I too wove words, though silently. Each day I felt the stir of my gift, the gift of Vaakyasatya, stirring within my chest as strongly as the monsoon had stirred the land. I was ten years old and I had already learned that my words had weight. At dusk I tried a small test: I whispered to myself about a firefly perched on the neem branch. The insect quivered under the warm air, then glowed a moment brighter. Perhaps, I thought, "perhaps I can really do this." But I cautioned myself – such power must be used gently.
No grand miracle announced itself that night. Only the tremor of truth in my bones as the rain washed the air. In my bed, with a thin mosquito net above me, I considered a conversation I would have had with a friend the next day. I phrased the words in my mind carefully: "Menaka, say truth like river water. Let it flow freely." And then I slept, letting the raindreams carry me away.
Days later the skies cleared, and the village prepared for a festival. It was the season of the harvest, and with our few rupees we bought small lanterns that night. We hung them on bamboo poles to drift on the irrigation canals, sending wishes on their faint, golden lights. I walked with my younger sister Meena, lantern in hand, through ankle-deep water that reflected the stars above. The monsoon mud squelched softly, and frogs began their lullaby chorus.
I thought of my grandmother telling tales of old. She spoke of Draupadi at dusk, saying, "Even queens must kneel at truth's door when night falls." In the warm air I smelled flowers and cooking oil and incense. A passing storyteller, just arrived from the next district, raised his voice near the temple square. I paused by an elder woman's sari as she turned to listen. He was telling the Mahabharata, a minor episode. In crackling Sanskrit and halting local tongues, he recounted Yudhisthira's struggle to speak honestly in court.
In the circle of firelight, faces glowed with awe and fear when he spoke of Shakuni's deceit. I recognized the germ of an idea: even those who claim truth sometimes wander in lies. I closed my eyes and let the storyteller's words melt into my bones. The taste of clarified butter lingered on my tongue from the sweets sold by the fire pit.
When it was my turn to release the lantern on the canal, I raised my eyes to the sky and pressed my palms together as if praying. My gift pulsed quietly. Out on the water, lanterns bobbed along paths of bamboo. Mine wavered, then steadied. Meena watched it float away with a smile. Inside me, I felt a conversation begin. "Friends talk truth under this sky," I told the night. It was not a loud magic at all – just a warming in my heart that I promised to keep careful.
The next morning I woke to soft rain again. I had promised myself to use my gift sparingly, but I also knew a sick child cannot wait. Old Daya's youngest grandchild, little Padma, lay feverish under a coarse blanket. Daya held her hand, pleading with the rain gods or any gods to bring cooling air. The sky was grey, the earth smelled of joss sticks at the shrine. I crept in as dawn broke.
"Padma, the truth of water…" I whispered under my breath. Slowly, as I stroked the girl's brow, I wove my words around the fever, unfurling it like a cloth. The moment passed softly. Her small hand loosened, fingers unclenched. Her breathing eased. When Daya later found the girl still warm but sleeping peacefully, she thanked me and the rain. In truth, I had done nothing visible – only nudged the veil between how things were and what they might be, using my single, kind truth.
Through days drenched by rain, the village grew calmer as our rice fields drank deep. I learned that speaking truth to those who suffer did not mean proclaiming old grievances, but simply reassuring their hidden hope. Every evening I sat at our kitchen fire, listening to the stone scoops scraping lentils, and thought about how truth is a gently guiding hand.
As the monsoon waned, a teacher arrived from a distant town. He had the gait of a tiger and silver in his beard. He taught us the Gita's verses beneath a tamarind tree each dawn. "Know your own duty," he whispered in a gravel voice, "and give up attachment to the fruit of action." I loved the way his lessons were quieter than his tone. He spoke of dharma and karma, of heroes in our lore.
Once, after class, I stayed behind, watching him massage a leg cramp. I remembered the night storyteller's words swirling still in my head. Truth was like fire, he had said. It purifies. The teacher watched a sparrow pick at grains on the ground, uninterested in my gaze. Then, humming his hymn softly, he found his answer. I approached him at sunset by the well and asked a question I'd been afraid to ask: "Master, how can truth be like rain?"
He looked up, and I caught the glow of wisdom in his eyes. "Truth nourishes the dry places, boy," he said quietly. "And it cannot be hidden for long." He seemed to sense something in me. For the first time, I wondered if he too had seen the unspoken strength behind my questions.
I left him and walked home under a violet sky. Somewhere along the path, under a flowering neem, I heard a whispering voice in my head: Use only one gift per dawn. I knew the voice – it was always there. I dipped my hands in river water and let it flow over my face. The air was cool, like his words. I resolved to test my gift in the morning's first silence.