97

Grandmother's yellowed copy of Kannadasan's poems lay beside my PaybookClub notebook. At ninety-seven, she'd memorized every line, her voice trembling with Tamil's ancient music. That photograph captured her wrinkled hands turning fragile pages, light streaming through our ancestral home's window. My friends called it breath-taking. Some found it thought-provoking, uncomfortable even. But watching her share those verses with my daughter, I understood something profound. This wasn't about age or fading beauty. It was defiance wrapped in tenderness, heritage becoming living breath. We were bridge-builders, three generations bound by words.