In the marketplace, fairness was measured by scales and words. One morning, my father carried clay pots to sell. A sly merchant at the stall tried to cheat him — tipping the scale to get more clay for less grain. I stood quietly by my father's side, feeling a knot of unease twist in my gut.
The merchant boasted, "Even clay dances to the hand that feeds it." He laughed, but his eyes were greedy. Kittu and I exchanged worried glances. My father gripped the scale's chain tightly.
As the merchant weighed our pots against a sack of grain, I remembered my promise to protect those I loved. The merchant was speaking an old lie: "Of course your poor arms cannot lift more than this." In the quiet of my mind, I softened those words and willed their opposite: "He will have fair measure."
By dawn the next day, it seemed everyone believed it was a joke or chance, but at the next market the grainman handed us twice as much grain for the same clay. The merchant's face went slack and pale. Villagers murmured — it was as if the scales themselves had been blessed. I said nothing.
Later, helping my father stack the grain, I wondered about balance. When the merchant realized he had been outwitted, he growled about curses, but my father only patted my shoulder and smiled in surprise.
That night, with moonlight through the slats, I wrestled with what I had done. Fairness had won today, but was it by my will alone or by fate's machinery? I shook my head and recalled each rule: I had only given the thought life; nature had done the rest. Yet, as I drifted to sleep under the silent watch of the peepal tree, one truth felt as clear as the morning sky: sometimes even a shadow can tip the scales toward dharma.