The village of Ubhayam came alive each year with music, colour, and scents that clung to the air like stories waiting to be told.
It was the Festival of Lights — a week when even the poorest hut shimmered with laughter and lanterns. Paper streamers fluttered across narrow mud lanes. Stall vendors shouted for attention, selling roasted corn, sweets soaked in jaggery syrup, and wooden toys painted with loving hands. Musicians plucked stringed instruments while children ran barefoot, chasing sparks from firecrackers and dreams too wild to name.
For most, it was the happiest time of the year.
But not for Hari.
This year, the music sounded distant. The lights seemed dimmer. The festival he had once counted down to with giddy impatience now passed him by like a river he had no wish to enter.
He stood apart from the crowd — still, quiet, watching his friends laugh as they splashed colours on each other and shoved sweets into their mouths.
He should have been there with them. He wanted to be. But something inside him didn't move.
He felt like a stranger in a life that had once fit him perfectly.
By the time the sun dipped behind the hills and lamps began to flicker one by one along every doorstep, Hari had already walked away from the crowd, his feet carrying him toward home without instruction.
He found his mother, Mrudhula, in the courtyard, humming softly as she folded freshly dried clothes. The fire in the kitchen had dimmed, casting warm shadows over the stone walls.
Hari sat down beside her, not saying a word.
She looked at him once, just once, and knew.
She left the clothes and sat against the wall, patting her lap gently.
"Come," she said. "Tell me what's bothering that little head of yours."
He hesitated only a moment before laying down, his head resting on the lap he'd known all his life — the only place where the world ever made sense.
He stared at the stars above, barely visible beyond the hanging banana leaves.
"Mother…" His voice was soft. "Do you think… something's wrong with me?"
She smiled faintly, brushing strands of hair from his forehead. "What kind of question is that?"
"I don't know." He took a breath, then all at once, the words spilled. "Everyone's laughing and playing and… I just feel like I'm not even there. Like I'm outside myself. I can't stop thinking. I look at the stars and wonder why we're even here. I keep asking myself what I'm supposed to do in this world. What's my place? What if I never find it?"
Mrudhula didn't answer immediately.
She just let her fingers run through his hair — slow, rhythmic, like the tides she'd told him about as a boy.
Finally, she said, "You are not wrong, Hari. You are… growing."
He blinked. "Growing?"
"Yes," she said gently. "Not just your arms and legs. But your mind, your spirit. You are beginning to ask questions that have no easy answers. That is a sign of someone who is… becoming something."
She looked up at the sky.
"There was a time," she said, "when all of this — the land, the sea, even the sky — was covered in darkness. Then the mages came, guided by the Great Flame. They lit the world with knowledge and strength. But they did not rule it. Do you know who truly holds this world together?"
Hari shook his head.
"People like your father," she said. "Farmers, bakers, potters, healers. Your father was born to a humble family. He could've left. He had offers. But he stayed, because his hands knew the rhythm of the soil. He knew his duty — to feed the world. And he has never been ashamed of it."
She smiled, a little wistfully.
"Every soul is born with a place. Sometimes, it takes time to find it. Sometimes… it finds you."
Hari turned toward her, eyes brimming with unshed tears.
"But what if I'm not like Father? What if I can't be happy here? What if I don't belong anywhere?"
Mrudhula leaned down and kissed his forehead.
"Then you will go," she whispered. "And the world will know you. And still — wherever you go, whatever you become — this lap, this home, this heart will always wait for you."
Hari closed his eyes.
Her voice changed, softened into a melody he hadn't heard since he was a child.
She began to sing.
A lullaby older than even the language of kings — carried down from mother to child, from flame to ash and back again.
"Close your eyes, little light
Let the stars carry your fight
The world will wait, the winds will turn
Until it's time for you to burn."
Her voice wrapped around him like a blanket of memories. The warmth of her palm rested on his cheek. The night was no longer so cold.
Hari fell asleep that night with tears dried on his lashes, and the first flicker of peace returning to his heart.
He didn't dream of fire or battles.
He dreamed of his mother's song.