The heat in Kanchipur is not the weather. It's a presence.
It sits on your shoulders like an old debt, slips into your clothes like an unwelcome hand, crawls into your thoughts until you can't tell where you end and the heat begins. I grew up inside that weight—inside its stubborn silence, its dust-filled breaths, inside a world that never once paused to ask what I wanted.
Our house stood at the very end of the village, where the road gave up and melted into cracked earth. Where the smell of dung drifted lazily into jasmine vines, neither scent strong enough to win. Where roofs sagged, fences leaned, and everything looked tired of being alive.
I belonged to that place.
Or maybe the place owned me.
Baba worked the land until his spine forgot what straight felt like. Maa worried until her eyes carried permanent shadows. Mohan still laughed now and then—a bright, sudden sound that felt stolen from a happier family.
And me?
I learned to watch.
To notice what people hid in the spaces between their words.
I'm good at that. Too good.
That's why I remember the day Baba went to Devraj Singh's mansion.
He left in the morning, full of forced hope, and returned at dusk looking like someone had carved a piece out of his soul. Dust clung to his forehead. His kurta was wrinkled. His eyes... they wouldn't meet ours.
I knew that look.
Fear pretending to be exhaustion.
He tried to hide it, but I saw everything.
I always do.
Everyone in Kanchipur knew Devraj Singh.
A towering figure carved out of arrogance and muscle.
Not a landlord on paper, but one in every other way that mattered.
A man whose money grew like weeds and whose temper grew like storms.
In this village, even the stray dogs quieted when his vehicle passed.
And now Baba owed him money.
Twenty thousand.
Six months.
Interest hungry enough to peel us down to our bones.
I told myself not to worry.
But lies taste different when you speak them to yourself.
Each day of those six months felt like a drop of poison falling slowly into a pot.
Silent.
Deadly.
Unavoidable.
By the time the deadline came close, something inside me was constantly alert. A small bird beating its wings against my ribs.
I went to the market at noon like I always did. The sun was a blade, sharp and arrogant. Most villagers stayed indoors at this hour; only vendors and desperate women were foolish enough to be out.
The road under my feet radiated heat. Dust floated lazily in the air, turning everything hazy.
My sky-blue salwar kameez clung to my skin, the fabric thin from years of washing. Maa says the color looks beautiful on me, that it reminds her of the sky on rare good days. I don't argue with her. Sometimes agreeing is easier than believing.
I walked through the half-empty bazaar, past tomatoes wilting in the heat, past a boy fanning flies away with a newspaper. The vegetable stall I always went to was missing its old weighing scale today—someone must have stolen it again.
I bent down to check the okra.
Hard enough. Fresh enough.
The kind of compromise poor families learn to make.
Sweat gathered on my forehead, sliding down my temple. I tucked my hair behind my ear and pretended not to notice the vendor's eyes lingering too long—not on my face, but on my dupatta.
I counted my coins.
Ten.
Twelve.
Fourteen.
Just enough to keep us fed for the night.
Not enough to keep us safe from anything else.
I handed over the money and clutched the cloth bag tightly. The vegetables were warm, as if the heat of the earth itself was sitting in my palms.
I turned to walk home.
And then—
I turned to walk home.
And then—
I felt it.
Not a sound, not a touch—something sharper, colder.
Like a thread pulling at the back of my neck.
An instinct that didn't come from my mind but from somewhere deeper, somewhere older, whispered that someone was watching me.
Not by accident.
Not casually.
Watching.
I lifted my head.
A black SUV stood at the far edge of the bazaar, its engine humming low, like something alive and waiting. Nothing in Kanchipur looked like that SUV. It didn't belong here—too shiny, too dark, too confident.
The driver's window was down.
And there he was.
Devraj Singh.
I'd seen him before, from a distance—always from a distance. Enough to know people feared him. Enough to know no one crossed him.
But this... this was different.
His arm hung over the window frame, muscles shifting lazily as if he owned the sunlight itself. His eyes—bare, unhidden—were fixed on me.
Steady.
Unblinking.
Heavy enough to make my skin prickle.
But what unsettled me the most was the look in them.
Not curiosity.
Not anger.
Not even recognition.
Something else.
Something I couldn't name.
Something that made my stomach twist—not in understanding, but in fear.
His gaze crawled over me, slow and unapologetic, like fingers brushing over skin without permission. A vulgar stare. A stare that didn't feel like a man looking at a person—but at something else. Something he wanted to break open and inspect.
A sick, cold feeling rippled down my spine.
Why?
Why was he looking at me like that?
I hugged my bag of vegetables tighter against my chest, suddenly aware of every inch of my own body. My dupatta felt thin. My clothes felt too visible. The air itself felt wrong.
I blinked, forcing myself to move, to walk away, to not give him the satisfaction of seeing me freeze.
But even as I turned, I could feel his eyes on my back.
Crawling.
Claiming.
Contaminating.
I took three steps.
Four.
Then five.
Behind me, the SUV's engine revved softly—too soft, too controlled.
Not a warning.
Not impatience.
A sound that felt like a man exhaling after spotting something he intended to take.
I didn't look back.
But the road felt narrower.
The world felt smaller.
And the sun, hot as it was, suddenly felt cold on my skin.
As if something dangerous had just noticed I existed.
And I didn't know why.
But the feeling stayed with me the entire walk home—his stare like dust on my skin I couldn't wipe away.
By the time I reached the house, my heartbeat had settled only a little. The fields were quiet; even the cows lazily swatting flies seemed bored of the afternoon.
Maa was sweeping the courtyard, her dupatta wrapped tightly around her hair. She looked up when she saw me, her eyes scanning my face with the kind of worry mothers are born knowing.
"You're late," she said softly.
"I... market was crowded," I lied.
She didn't question it.
Sometimes lies are kindnesses we give each other.