skin

My grandmother traced Tamil Brahmi letters onto my palm with trembling fingers, teaching me what colonizers tried erasing. Each stroke was ceremony, resistance, love. I posted her weathered hands online, and thousands reacted with fool, detailed confusion. But a comment arrived: Swami Paramarthananda's teaching on seeing divinity in heritage. Her wisdom suddenly mattered to strangers. That currency of connection—likes converting to understanding—surprised me. Not cash, but something deeper: recognition that our skin carries stories, that forgotten scripts breathing through living hands deserve witnessing. My grandmother smiled when I read her the responses. We weren't alone anymore.