Three weeks before the monsoon, the sky over Puri turned the colour of a bruise — heavy purple with veins of grey. Aarav could taste the rain in the air even though it hadn't fallen yet. It tasted like iron and wet earth.

"It's coming early this year," Dadu said, looking up from the fishing net spread across his lap. His brown fingers moved through the mesh like spiders, finding tears and mending them with twists of nylon cord. "We have three weeks. Maybe less."

Three weeks didn't sound like much, but in Puri it was everything. The monsoon didn't politely knock — it kicked the door down. If you weren't ready, the sea would swallow your boats, the rain would flood your house, and the wind would rearrange your life like a careless giant shuffling cards.

The next morning, the village moved as if one mind had woken up in fifty bodies. Aarav watched from the porch as Rajan-kaka, the carpenter, hauled planks to the harbour to reinforce the boat sheds. He wasn't being paid. Three women from the street behind the temple were stacking sandbags along the low wall near the creek. Nobody had asked them. Lakshmi and her friends were sealing grain jars with wax and carrying them to the community storehouse on the hill. The jars were heavy, and the hill was steep, and Lakshmi complained the entire way up — but she didn't stop climbing.

"Come," Dadu said, handing Aarav a bucket of tar. "The boats need caulking."

They worked until Aarav's arms ached and his fingernails were black. Beside them, Madan-chacha was checking every knot on every anchor rope. Old Parvati-amma, who could barely walk, sat on an overturned bucket sorting dried fish into bundles for storage. Even the temple priest was up on the roof, tying down loose tiles.

"Why does everyone help?" Aarav asked, wiping tar on his shorts. "Rajan-kaka doesn't even own a boat."

Dadu smiled. "When the monsoon floods the creek, whose house sits closest to the water?"

"Rajan-kaka's."

"And who carries sandbags to protect it?"

"The women from the temple street."

"And when the women's roof leaked last October?"

Aarav remembered. "Rajan-kaka fixed it. For free."

Dadu tied off a knot and bit the cord. "That's the secret, Aarav. No one person can fight the monsoon. But a village that feeds each other — the sea feeds the fisherman, the fisherman feeds the carpenter, the carpenter shelters the women, the women guard the grain — that village stands. Every time." He pointed at the darkening sky. "The storm doesn't care who you are. But we care for each other. That's why we survive."

The monsoon arrived twelve days later, howling and furious. It bent trees and turned streets into rivers. But the boats were safe, the grain was dry, and every family in the village had a roof that held.