The oil lamps flickered when the lingam was touched.
The priest called it devotion.
The others called it destiny.
But—
Is it really destiny?
Five-year-olds are not meant to be quiet.
They are meant to cry when their hair is oiled too hard.
Laugh when goats chase them.
Ask why the sky is blue.
They are not meant to sit in temple corridors counting the rhythm between bell strikes.
Seven heartbeats.
Pause.
Seven again.
Predictable.
Which means not divine.
"Why do you stare at the sanctum like that?" her mother asked.
The question was not sharp. Not indulgent either.
She shook her head once, as though dismissing something unsaid.
Her mother did not dress like the other women.
Not richer.
Not louder.
Not plainer either.
Just composed.
Her hair was parted cleanly down the middle, drawn back into a long braid that fell straight along her spine. Fresh jasmine threaded through it — not overflowing, just enough.
The other women wore flowers like celebration.
She wore them like punctuation.
A single gold chain rested at her collarbone. Not heavy temple jewelry. Not bare either. Just enough to signal belonging.
Her bangles were few. Solid. They did not clatter when she moved.
She did not fidget.
Even when the bell miscounted.
Even when the priest's glance lingered too long.
Her fingers tightened on her daughter's shoulder, but her face did not change.
Reactions were private.
Composure was public.
"Lower your eyes," she said softly.
Not fearful.
Correcting.
As though etiquette was being violated, not divinity.
The eyes did not lower.
Her mother sighed — not embarrassed.
Resigned.
As though she had known for some time that this child did not move like the others.
The women shifted as her mother passed.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
Conversations softened. Laughter shortened. Backs straightened.
The younger wives adjusted their pallus. An older woman nodded — measuring, not warm.
The maids behaved differently.
They lowered their eyes first.
Valli stepped forward before being called.
"Amma," she said.
Not Akka.
Not Aunty.
Amma.
Words weighed more here.
When offerings were distributed, the brass plate reached her mother first, though no one announced it. The priest's wife ensured it quietly.
No one crowded her.
No one gossiped within earshot.
It was not affection.
It was distance.
Respect often resembled a wall.
Two girls near the temple pond stopped playing as she approached.
"She doesn't laugh," one whispered.
"She just looks."
They were not wrong.
She did not simply look.
She watched.
She watched how the maids never interrupted her mother.
How the headman's wife lowered her voice when addressing her.
They were not royal.
But they were not ordinary.
Her mother's hand rested lightly on her head as they left the corridor. Almost absent.
Yet when a maid nearly brushed against her, the apology was offered twice.
To her mother.
Not to her.
She looked up.
Her mother was already looking back.
Not smiling.
Thinking.
And the suspicion formed — she was being watched as carefully as she watched others.
The respect was not truly for her mother.
It was for the man who was not present.
Her father came once every two months.
When he arrived, the village altered its posture.
Men rose before he reached them. Words were chosen carefully, like coins from a purse.
He did not dress like the farmers.
His veshti was always clean white, the border narrow but deliberate. The cotton was finer — longer staple, tighter weave. The fold at his waist never loosened. A narrow dyed angavastram crossed his shoulder when he traveled — official, not ornamental.
He carried palm-leaf bundles bound in cord.
Not a sword.
Not a plough.
Records.
Seals.
Authority that traveled.
When he left, the village exhaled.
But it did not forget.
Even in absence, respect lingered around their house like incense after flame.
Their home stood slightly apart — at the edge of cultivated land where fields sloped toward forest.
Beyond the last paddy bund, the earth rose sharply into dense hills. In the evenings, the wind carried the scent of leaf-rot and wild jasmine. Sometimes elephants passed far enough that only branches breaking could be heard.
The forest watched the village.
And the village watched their house.
Maids came when called. Messages traveled quickly. Disputes were not discussed loudly near their courtyard.
Not because they were feared.
Because her father wrote things down.
"I will let him know," her mother would say quietly.
That was enough.
Yet for all this weight, the house was not large.
It was orderly.
Measured.
Temporary.
As though waiting.
For what, she did not yet know.
Her father left before dawn each time he returned to town.
He always looked back once.
At his wife.
Then at his daughter.
Not warmly.
Assessing.
As though measuring something unseen.
The forest wind moved through the areca palms behind him.
And for a moment, an unfamiliar awareness settled.
Not fear.
Not devotion.
But the sense of belonging to something larger than the village.
Something with rules not yet understood.
The forest did not speak.
It observed.
She had begun to do the same.
"Not every story begins with belief.
Some begin with observation.
And what is observed is not always believed."