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Maya hadn't spoken Tamil in five years, working nights at the clinic to earn what she could. When the poetry reading arrived in her city, something stirred. She sat in the crowded hall, listening to verses about monsoons and mothers, about roots stretching across oceans. The poet spoke of diaspora not as loss, but as bridges. Maya's hands trembled. That night, she called her mother in Chennai for the first time in months, reciting childhood poems from memory. The words came alive again, connecting her to something vast and warm, something that had never truly left.