Hello

Amma's weathered hands trembled as she typed the single word into the glowing screen. "Hello." Her grandson had finally convinced her to join the social network where Tamil poets shared verses across oceans. For thirty years, she'd written quietly in Chennai, her words forgotten in drawers. Now, diaspora readers discovered her work instantly. A cash reward appeared for her poem about monsoon memories. She wept. But money meant less than this: strangers from Singapore, London, Toronto commented in Tamil, their mother tongue alive in her lines. Her granddaughter hugged her close. Heritage wasn't fading after all.