Ananya was not allowed to sleep tonight. This was the rule, and she had been reminding everyone of it since morning.

“Even if I fall asleep on the floor,” she told her grandmother, “wake me up. Promise.”

“We will wake you,” her grandmother said, smiling, hanging a small string of marigolds over the doorway. “Don’t worry so much.”

The house smelled different today — ghee and cardamom from the kitchen, the sharp sweetness of basundi simmering slowly on the stove since afternoon. Ananya’s mother had been making it since lunchtime, stirring it patiently, occasionally letting Ananya taste a spoonful straight from the pot.

“Why does Krishna’s birthday happen so late at night?” Ananya asked, sitting cross-legged on the cool floor while her father set up the small temple corner with extra care — a fresh cloth, a tiny silver cradle, flowers tucked into every corner.

“Because that’s when he was actually born,” her father said. “Midnight. In the rain. Quietly, when no one was watching, except the people who needed to keep him safe.”

Ananya thought this sounded slightly unfair. Her own birthday had cake in the afternoon and balloons and her friends coming over. Krishna didn’t even get a proper party on the day he was born.

“That’s why we give him one now,” her grandmother said, as if she’d heard the thought directly. “Every year. So it’s never just quiet and small again.”

By nine o’clock, Ananya’s eyes had started to feel heavy, no matter how hard she fought it. She kept pinching her own arm to stay awake, sitting near the window, watching other houses on the street light up one by one — strings of lights along balconies, the temple bell ringing faintly somewhere far off.

By eleven, she had stopped pinching and started leaning. By eleven thirty, her head was resting against her grandmother’s arm, and she wasn’t entirely sure if her eyes were open or closed anymore.

“Ananya.” Her grandmother’s voice, gentle, close to her ear. “It’s almost time.”

She sat up so fast she nearly knocked over a small bowl of flowers.

The room had gone quiet in a different way now — not sleepy quiet, but waiting quiet. Everyone gathered close to the little silver cradle. Her father held the bell, ready. Her mother held the bowl of basundi, the steam still rising faintly.

The clock somewhere in the house struck midnight, soft and far away.

The bell rang.

Ananya didn’t fully understand everything that happened in the next few minutes — the prayers, the small lamp passed carefully from hand to hand, the sweetness of the basundi finally reaching her own mouth, warm and rich and worth every minute of waiting.

But she understood this much: the room felt full in a way it hadn’t an hour ago. Full of something she couldn’t name yet, but knew she wanted to feel again, every year, for the rest of her life.

She fell properly asleep ten minutes later, basundi bowl still in her lap, completely and happily missed.