Time carried me forward like a river in flood. Each day my body grew sturdier and my mind grew restless with knowledge that few here could grasp. By the time I was two, I spoke in short sentences that astonished my parents. They smiled when I asked questions they did not expect, like naming five grains by sight or counting the cattle in our field faster than any herder. I could recite five prayers long before I understood their meaning. Still, to the villagers I was just a sweet, quiet child who helped at chores and fell asleep by dusk.
One morning I crawled with my brother Kittu to the edge of the temple courtyard, curious about the commotion inside. A group of high-caste boys strode past after a prayer, and one tall boy turned to me with a sneer. "Stay back, Shudra dog!" he spat, kicking at dust. Kittu pressed me close. My father, standing nearby, laid a hand on my shoulder and whispered a soft word. Inside me something burned — shame, anger, and confusion. I wanted to cry out, but the only sound was my quiet whimper. My father carried me home, murmuring a prayer for protection, and I realized fully the walls between our worlds.
My mind often drifted to questions no child should ask. I was a village boy to everyone around me, but inside I had memories of libraries and strangers. During temple rituals I would hum softly to myself, surprised when the villagers said I had chanted an old verse from Sanskrit. The elders nodded knowingly and declared I was chosen by fate, but I only felt scared of betraying my secret knowledge. A wandering sage once spoke of karma and rebirth as I hid behind a pillar; I strained to catch his meaning. Could I have lived before, as they said? It made no sense, and I hardly dared to think it. My parents never explained, treating me like any child, but I kept my wonder locked inside.
Still, I learned at every turn. In silence I made the world my classroom. I helped the potter collect clay to watch how the wheel spun, recognizing patterns I had seen in math. I tied bundles of straw for the smith, using the chance to ask quietly why some metals glowed red and others did not. I offered to herd our sheep in the hills so I could see the land's layout from above. None of it felt like play to me; it was gathering tools of understanding. Each act of help filled me with a little knowledge and a little hope.
At night I listened to tales the older children told. They spoke of princes and heroes I'd only read about in my old books: the Pandava brothers living in exile beyond these hills. I recognized the names Bhima and Arjuna and pointed out details they had wrong. They scratched their heads at the Shudra boy who knew so much about distant kings. I even made a cautious friend of one kind boy, Ishaan, who shared his sweet wheat cake with me when others wouldn't. But even friendship seemed gilded here — I knew Ishaan could someday ride as a warrior, and I would likely remain in the shadows. For now I reveled in these small connections that made me feel less alone.
As I approached my third birthday, I understood more of my place and yet felt even more out of place. I helped milk the goats each dawn and returned to bed each night thinking of algorithms. I often stood at our hut's door under the inky sky, feeling the cool breeze on my cheek and staring at a single bright star. Was my fate written in the heavens? I whispered to it sometimes, promised silently that I would not be bound by the roles written by birth. Inside me stood a boy for this village and a man who remembered another life, locked in silent truce. I had learned patience and obedience, but I kept that promise close as armor against these quiet days.
Nature became my silent teacher. I watched how a single seed would multiply into countless stalks of grain, feeding us through the year. Even a small idea in my mind felt capable of growing and helping others. I promised to nurture these thoughts quietly.
I was learning to be patient, to observe where others did not. Each day I grew a little stronger in heart. Even if they did not realize it, I was weaving the first threads of my destiny from the fabric of these two worlds.
By the age of three, I had learned the rhythms of this world. I rose before dawn to help my father fetch water from the village well. The wooden bucket felt familiar in my hands, even as the songs of birds in the trees around me were foreign in their timbre. At sunrise, elders burned incense to welcome the sun; I watched their ritual with quiet reverence, thinking of the computer lab where we once studied energy and light with cold instruments. Each scent and sound carried memories of my other life: lemon blossoms on warm nights, the buzz of a distant engine, the chill of midnight air in a city I could barely recall.
People in the village treated my silence as piety. I often sat with my mother to recite her morning prayers; I remembered the words even without understanding them. If a Brahmin priest came to bless a new home, I would be held on a parent's hip, watching with wide eyes as he spoke archaic Sanskrit. Once, out of curiosity, I repeated a verse I'd memorized long ago, and the priest's eyebrows shot up in surprise. He murmured that the gods indeed favored me. A crack of hope flashed through me — if even a priest thought I was special, maybe the truth of who I was mattered less here.
Yet whenever I saw a high-caste child approach, a swirl of confusion tightened in my chest. One such boy, Arun, rode past on a pony and sneered at me from across a dirt road. "Shudra's son," he jeered. I did not know the bullying ways of my old schoolyard; the hurt came out in tears. In that moment I remembered a meditation trick I had learned: I took a steady breath and slowly wiped my face. Arun hadn't expected me to stand up for myself. I simply looked at him calmly and said, "Maybe one day you will know." Then I turned away. He sputtered and kicked at the ground, unsure of why I had not crumbled.
My mother and father never punished me harshly for such misunderstandings. They were not cruel, but they had little patience for childish questions. Once, after I asked why I could not go to the Brahmin's school, my father just shook his head. "Our place is not there," he said softly. I understood then that some fences were invisible but unbreakable. That night, I lay awake trying to reconcile fairness with fate, but sleep claimed me before I found an answer.
Between my chores and the village gossip, I began to form plans, however childish. If I learned to read that holy script, perhaps one day I could read for these folks as a skill, not a crime. If I learned to sing, maybe even Brahmins would let me join their chorus. But for now, I was careful to hold my tongue and my ambitions close.
Late one afternoon, as I swept the courtyard, an idea sparked. The well was nearly dry. I remembered from my geography how rain is measured and predicted. Looking up at the clouds forming in the sky, I told my father quietly, "Rain soon." He laughed it off — after all, he was a farmer. But after nightfall, the skies opened in torrents. The next morning, my father treated me with wide eyes, murmuring a blessing about my wisdom. I said nothing about what I had heard earlier from migrating birds. Inside me something had changed. It felt as if I had touched a secret, though I did not dare admit it even to myself.
By dusk I was not merely a child among many, but a child who remembered. Each sunset brought sleep and each sunrise new resolve. "One day," I promised myself under the orange sky, "I will find my path." The young soul of the city within me was growing ever more entwined with the boy of the village. In quiet moments I practiced the silent analysis of my old life; in the marketplace I listened to bargains and prices and thought of algorithms. Each day I wove threads of memory into the fabric of this new life. I was learning to be patient, to observe where others did not. Each day I grew a little stronger in heart. Even if they did not realize it, I was weaving the first threads of my destiny from the fabric of these two worlds.
Nature became my silent teacher. I watched how a single seed would multiply into countless stalks of grain, feeding us through the year. Even a small idea in my mind felt capable of growing and helping others. I promised to nurture these thoughts quietly.
And so another day ended quietly: the boy was learning, growing, but still alone with his secret dreams. I lay down on my straw mat to sleep, whispering my vow to the stars. They alone seemed to know what I was becoming. Sleeping now, I dreamed.
I was three, almost four, when I first sensed something extraordinary stirring within me. Mother had been ill for days, fever burning through her bones. One evening, as the sky bloomed purple with dusk, I whispered under my breath, "She will be well." It was a crazy thought — she was weak and fevered. Yet at dawn, her eyes fluttered open, the flush gone. I looked around, bewildered. Had it been my prayer? Did that even make sense? I felt a tremor of power — but also fear. What strange gift had I?
Father had been weeping beside her cot, frantic and helpless. When he saw her alive, he embraced her gratefully and glanced at me with wonder, murmuring, "Our child is blessed." He did not know why he said it. I kept my secret, but inside I was astonished and uneasy. All I had done was think a wish in the dark. Was it just luck, or was it something more?
I spent that day testing possibilities in my mind. Each time someone said "It will not happen," I quietly thought, "It will." When Kittu's kite was stuck in a tree, I flicked the words, "It will come down," and it fluttered down into my hand on its own. When a hungry beggar at the gate worried about no food, I imagined bowls of rice appearing, and soon neighbors shared an extra meal. No one noticed; they were accustomed to small miracles of hospitality here. But I noticed.
Lying in bed that night, I felt both powerful and terrified. Was I bending reality now? What if someone discovered? I vowed silence, but I could not deny: the whisper in my heart might truly weave truth into life.