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.