skin

My grandmother's weathered hands traced Avvaiyar's verses across my arm in henna, each line a teaching. She whispered ancient Tamil wisdom while the paste dried, stories seeping into my skin like the dye itself. Later, our PaybookClub gathered to discuss Thiruppavai, and I noticed how literature lived on us all differently—honest, unadulterated impressions etched in memory. Someone asked why tradition mattered. No questions asked, we simply knew. The warmth around that table, sharing words and tea, felt sacred. My skin remembers everything: her touch, those sacred lines, the collective voice of women before me. Heritage isn't worn; it's lived through us, generation by generation.