aberlour my

Grandmother pressed the worn volume into my hands—Kannadasan's collected poems, spine cracked from decades of devotion. She'd carried it from Chennai to Singapore, then to me in London, whispering how his words had sustained her through lonely nights. I traced the margins where she'd written my name in Tamil script, each letter a small rebellion against forgetting. That evening, surrounded by friends from a dozen countries, I read aloud. Their faces softened. A colleague brought whisky—Aberlour—and suddenly my grandmother's world became ours too. The ancient words found new voices. In that moment, belonging felt less like chasing external rewards and more like discovering we'd always been searching for the same thing: recognition, roots, stories that refused to fade.