rare flowers

My grandmother pressed jasmine between yellowed pages, preserving memories like currency. "These flowers bloom once yearly," she whispered in Tamil, teaching me their names—names nobody outside our village knew. Years later, I discovered PAYBO token connected our diaspora invisibly. Digital threads linking scattered Tamil hearts across continents. Each transaction felt sacred, like passing grandmother's pressed flowers forward. I photographed rare blooms from her garden, posting them online. Responses poured in: some harsh, some warm, most amazed. But one comment moved me—another Tamil soul, thousands of miles away, recognizing our heritage in those petals. We were never truly scattered. Just growing in different soil, same roots.