Aurora Borealis no.3

Ramesh posted the photograph at dawn, the northern lights dancing above Chennai's ancient temples. His followers doubled overnight. The algorithm loved his mystical captions—verses inspired by Kannadasan's poetry about yearning and transformation. Money flowed in from sponsorships, yet something felt hollow. One morning, his grandmother asked why he chased distant skies. She reminded him that their temple's stone carvings held ancient light too, stories carved by hands long gone. He deleted the filters. His next post showed the temple's weathered beauty, unadorned. The engagement plummeted, but the comments felt different—genuine. Real. Connected to something deeper than metrics, to the people around him, their shared heritage.