Brothers Of The Sun

The monsoon night had teeth. Rain hammered the tin roofs along the riverside neighborhood in 1975 until the sound became a single roaring sheet, and the street lamps - those stubborn little bulbs - glowed like sickly fireflies trapped under glass. Water climbed the lane in thick, brown breaths, swallowing the steps of the houses one by one. Asha Malhotra clutched her newborn to her chest and ran anyway, her feet sliding on slime that felt alive, her sari already heavy as wet rope.

Her baby’s mouth opened and closed as if he could drink the air. She pressed her cheek to his head, felt the warm damp of him, and tried to count her steps by the rhythm of the river’s shove. Somewhere behind her, a woman screamed a name that dissolved into thunder. Somewhere ahead, a man shouted for help and the shout turned into spluttering coughs when the current found his legs.

“Hold on, beta,” Asha whispered, though her voice was swallowed as fast as it was born. She didn’t have the luxury of fear; fear took too long to reach. She moved because her arms had decided what they would do, and her heart followed.

When the lane narrowed, the flood widened. The current had torn a thin bridge of debris across the canal - wood, plastic, a doorframe - floating like a broken raft. Asha stepped onto it and felt it tilt under her weight. The river grabbed at the sari at her waist and tugged hard enough to make her shoulder blade bite.

“Madam!” a voice cried from the dark, bright with panic. Asha looked and saw an old hospital orderly, soaked to the bone, waving a lantern that barely lit anything. “This side - this side is safer! There’s a cart - there’s - ”

“There’s nothing safe,” Asha snapped, then softened when she heard her own sharpness. “Please. I need - my baby - ”

The orderly’s lantern swung, catching a flash of white cloth drifting near the curb: a cradle cover, ripped from somewhere. It was carried toward the river like a message no one had the courage to read. Asha’s stomach lurched. “Hospital,” the orderly managed. “They’re trying to move - ”

Move. As if the flood would respect a plan.

Asha forced herself forward, balancing on the floating wreckage, her newborn’s weight pulling her down. The current slapped her shins and sent cold jolts up her legs. She could hear the baby’s breathing turn shallow, could feel the way his tiny body fought to stay warm.

A shout split the roar. “Cradle! Cradle is coming!”

Asha turned so fast her head swam. In the lantern’s weak light, two cradles - two, she realized in a sick burst - bobbled into view, separated by only a few feet of water but drifting like different destinies. One was a woven cradle with an orange cloth tied to its handle. The other was wrapped in a pale hospital sheet that looked too clean for this mud, too white for this night.

Asha’s legs threatened to give. The newborn in her arms made a small choking sound, as if he could smell the other babies and mourn them from afar. She tried to step closer but the debris she stood on shifted again, making her grip tighten until her fingers hurt.

The river grabbed the cradles. It tugged hard enough that the orange cloth snagged briefly on a broken railing, then slipped free with a wet snap. The white sheet cradle rolled, lifted, and began to glide sideways, as if the flood had decided which direction it preferred.

Asha’s lungs burned. She had run for her own child, but the sight of those cradles - those helpless, swinging vessels - made something in her chest tear open. The orderly lunged toward the nearer cradle, shouting instructions no one could follow. Two young men waded in up to their waists, their hands outstretched, faces pale with the effort of being brave.

Asha couldn’t afford to watch. She couldn’t afford to choose wrong. She reached for the floating debris beside her, found a plank, and shoved herself forward, dragging her newborn along the slick surface as the river tried to pull her back like a thief.

“Stop!” she cried, to no one and everyone.

The nearest cradle drifted closer, almost within her reach - almost. Asha’s fingers stretched, and then the plank beneath her splintered with a crack that sounded like bone.

She went down hard into water that was cold enough to steal her breath. Mud filled her nose, her mouth, every space where air should have been. For a moment she couldn’t tell if she was drowning or simply being punished by the river’s insistence. Her newborn’s weight struck her chest, and she clung to it, arms locking around him as though the river could be held off by pure will.

When she surfaced, she coughed, water streaming off her chin. Her sari clung to her like a second skin. The lantern bobbed farther away. The two cradles were already separating again - orange cloth vanishing toward the bend, pale sheet drifting straight into the darker pull.

Asha crawled to a higher patch of debris, one hand pressing her newborn’s back as if to hold his ribs in place. Her eyes burned....