17

My grandmother showed me Kannadasan's verses at seventeen, her weathered fingers tracing Tamil words on yellowed pages. "This poet understood suffering," she whispered, "and transformed it into triumph." Years later, I shared those same poems online, watching strangers react with wonder. The platform paid me fairly, something unimaginable in her time. Yet the real currency was deeper—untold stories finally heard, our heritage reaching souls who hungered for meaning. In those reactions, I saw her nodding approvingly. We're building something beautiful together, one shared verse at a time, keeping our ancestors close.