As the monsoon waned, a teacher arrived from a distant town. He had the gait of a tiger and silver in his beard. He taught us the Gita's verses beneath a tamarind tree each dawn. "Know your own duty," he whispered in a gravel voice, "and give up attachment to the fruit of action." I loved the way his lessons were quieter than his tone. He spoke of dharma and karma, of heroes in our lore.
Once, after class, I stayed behind, watching him massage a leg cramp. I remembered the night storyteller's words swirling still in my head. Truth was like fire, he had said. It purifies. The teacher watched a sparrow pick at grains on the ground, uninterested in my gaze. Then, humming his hymn softly, he found his answer. I approached him at sunset by the well and asked a question I'd been afraid to ask: "Master, how can truth be like rain?"
He looked up, and I caught the glow of wisdom in his eyes. "Truth nourishes the dry places, boy," he said quietly. "And it cannot be hidden for long." He seemed to sense something in me. For the first time, I wondered if he too had seen the unspoken strength behind my questions.
I left him and walked home under a violet sky. Somewhere along the path, under a flowering neem, I heard a whispering voice in my head: Use only one gift per dawn. I knew the voice – it was always there. I dipped my hands in river water and let it flow over my face. The air was cool, like his words. I resolved to test my gift in the morning's first silence.