Saanvi woke before the first light had fully claimed the sky. The order had come the night before from the village headman: she was to be in the fields at dawn, alone, to check the young millet and pull the weeds that had sprung up after the recent rains. No one else was assigned. She knew what that meant. In this village a woman’s body was never fully her own once the elders decided it belonged to the land and the men who worked it.

She tied her faded green sari tight around her waist, the cloth already damp with the early moisture in the air. Her blouse was old and stretched; the buttons strained across her full breasts. Barefoot, she stepped out of the small mud house and walked the narrow path between the houses. Dogs stirred but did not bark. The air smelled of wet earth and cow dung. By the time she reached the open fields the sky had turned the colour of dilute milk. Mist clung low over the rows of green shoots.