A tiny sparrow notices a leak in the irrigation canal and turns a village from blame to action.
**Hook:** At noon the village argued about the dying paddy—too little water, too much sun, too many speeches. On the bank, a sparrow watched a thin thread escape the canal like a secret.
**Rise:** She flew to the potter’s yard, pecked at damp clay, rolled a bead into the air, and dropped it on the leak. The water pushed; the bead slid. She returned with another, then another, beak working like a humble pump. Children noticed first, then mothers; soon a line of hands carried clay balls and smooth stones, led by laughter instead of orders. Men arrived with baskets, not opinions, and widened the patch. The headman, late and flustered, arrived with a speech in perfect grammar and no verbs.
The trickle slowed; the canal sighed; the paddy stood a little straighter. Someone handed the sparrow a grain of jaggery big as her skull. She hammered at it joyfully, sugar spritzing like confetti. That evening, the headman’s speech was shorter: “Thank you.”
**Finish:** The harvest that season was not miraculous; it was earned—pinch by pinch, pebble by pebble, led by a bird whose dictionary had no word for “someone else’s problem.” **Moral:** Fix the leak you see; small repairs become rivers.
