goodnight

Grandma whispered ancient Tamil verses before sleep, their cadence like monsoon rains. My phone glowed with strangers' curated lives, hollow currency exchanged for hollow hearts. I found Kannadasan's poetry online—raw, untamed—and finally understood her whispered prayers weren't secrets to withhold, but treasures meant for sharing. That night, I recorded her voice reciting those verses, not for likes, but for my children's children. She smiled knowingly. In preserving her words, I discovered something social media never promised: belonging to something timeless, something ours. We were part of something larger than ourselves, connected through generations of whispered goodnight stories that money could never buy.