I saw her first at the temple festival.

I was twenty-two. She was nineteen. I didn't know her name. I only knew she belonged to the houses behind the temple. I belonged to the streets that ended before them.

That was the distance. Four streets. A hundred years.

She carried a brass lamp in her hands. The flame lit her face. She walked in the procession with the other Brahmin girls. They wore madisars. They smelled of jasmine and camphor.

I stood with my friends near the tea shop. We watched. We always watched.

“That one,” my friend Ravi said. “The one with the lamp. She's beautiful.”

I didn't say anything. But I couldn't look away.

She had a way of walking. Slow. Steady. Like she knew exactly where she was going and wasn't afraid of the dark.

The procession turned. She came closer. My heart hit my ribs.

Then she looked at me.

Just for a second. Her eyes were dark. Calm. Like a deep well.

She didn't smile. She didn't look away fast. She just looked. Then she walked on.

Ravi laughed. “She looked at you, da. A Brahmin girl looked at you.”

“Shut up,” I said.

But my hands were shaking.

The procession moved on without waiting for me. Drums rolled down the street. Children ran between adults. Someone shouted for more camphor. Someone else laughed near the tea shop. Ordinary life continued, completely unaware that mine had just acquired a before and an after.

I went home that night carrying nothing from the festival except the sound of her name in my head.

Meera.

The festival went on. Drums. Fire. Chants. I didn't see any of it. I only saw her. The lamp. The flame. The way she held it like it was nothing.

Then it happened.

A boy ran past. He hit her arm. The lamp slipped.