THE SUN WE CARRY

At dawn, Tara hears someone call her grandfather by a name she has never known. Her family finds this funny. Tara wonders what else she has missed.

She has come for Chhath. Over four days, the house fills with food made by practiced hands, baskets arranged and rearranged and songs whose words she cannot always follow. Janki keeps the demanding fast, while everyone around her has a different idea of how to help. At the river, the family will make offerings to the setting sun and return before dawn for the rising one.

Between those two journeys to the water, Tara listens to stories shaped by departures, old habits and memories that do not always agree. Some things are explained. Others are learned by watching, asking and trying for herself. She cannot learn it all in one visit. Perhaps belonging begins with knowing what to ask.

Set across the four days of Chhath, The Sun We Carry: In the Keeping tells a story of family, memory and what one generation carries forward from another.