In the sleepy village of Parole — where cow dung mixed with crushed marigold in the morning breeze — lived a girl who smiled like sorrow had never touched her shadow.
Maybe it hadn't. Or maybe she had simply forgotten how to keep happiness only for herself.
Her name was Hiya — as soft as the clouds she chased from the rooftops, as sweet and round as village guavas. Her skin glowed like the full summer moon, and her hair flowed like black rain, brushing her lower back as she ran barefoot across the mustard fields.
Hiya belonged to everyone — and no one.
Her parents had disappeared from the world before she could even learn to miss them. Fate had taken them, but sorrow never found her. Maybe because she never gave it room to stay.
Her aunt and uncle raised her like one of their own. They gave her rice, warmth, and a place at the table. And Hiya gave back with all she had — quietly, lovingly, without ever being asked.
She woke before the roosters, swept the courtyard while half-dreaming, ground spices until her palms glowed yellow, and fetched water from the hand pump as her dupatta danced in the wind. She brewed tea too sweet for anyone's taste but hers — just to see their smiles. She braided her cousin's hair, helped Munna with his scribbled homework, and carried sacks for strangers without expecting thanks.
She was joy in motion. Glowing, barefoot, uncontainable joy.
At school, she was more than just the bright girl. "She listens with her eyes," one teacher murmured, watching her tilt her head like a sunflower. She stayed back to wipe dusty blackboards. She brought boiled sweets for the masons building the school wall. She read poems to an old blind woman under the banyan tree, letting her voice paint the verses in the air.
"Hiya," her headmaster once said, "you're the kind of girl who makes the world feel kinder."
She only smiled. Because kindness had never taught her to wait for applause.
But beneath that smile… lived a question she hadn't yet dared to speak.
She didn't dream of cities or polished shoes. She didn't want to be a doctor or teacher like the others. She just wanted to belong — somewhere, anywhere — without feeling too soft, too strange, or too much.
"I want to study," she whispered one afternoon, sifting rice under a jacaranda tree.
"To become what?" her aunt asked, fanning the stove.
"I don't know," Hiya said, her eyes fixed on the rice grains. "But… I want to be more than what I am."
Her aunt paused, then rested a warm palm on Hiya's head.
"That's enough," she said gently. "Wanting is where becoming begins."
That night, it rained harder than it had all summer. Thunder cracked the sky. Mango leaves trembled.
And the next morning, a letter arrived — damp at the edges, trembling with news.
"Scholarship awarded."
She had topped the village board exams.
The government would send her to town. Her books, hostel, and tuition — all taken care of.
Her uncle wept quietly behind the neem tree. Her aunt cooked kheer with extra jaggery. Munna made her a card from torn notebook paper. It read: "Don't forget us."
Hiya stood by the doorway, letter in hand, wind in her hair — and for the first time, she smiled for herself.
But somewhere, just beyond the fields, something unseen had already begun to shift.