The village was just waking. Roosters crowed, the sky still carried the faded purple of dawn, and the handpump near the neem tree clanged rhythmically as women filled their steel buckets. Their bangles jingled like conspiracies in motion.

Dawn smelled of wet earth and mango sap. The neem’s shadow lay long and thin across the courtyard; the handpump’s metallic ring cut through the soft chorus of birds, a small clock that measured the day. Women’s saris moved in slow choreography, the rhythm of pumping and laughter stitched together like embroidery. Each clink of a steel bucket sounded louder than it should have, as if the morning itself listened.