mamallapuram

India is my mother.  She held me close to her brown skin. Her henna hand cradled my head. Her silk sari soothed my skin.  I exhaled and the snake was released.

Mamallapuram was not what I expected. The yoga was not western pretzel logic. It was prana. It was love. It was love pulling me through the ashram grounds to buy a coconut. A coconut!

The vendor, draped in silk, was so unassuming.  She pulled out a machete of a knife and cut a hole in the coconut without sacrificing a drop. I gave her a small fistful of rupees and I drank from the earth. Sweet elixir in a brown, fuzzy globe.

I wandered away.  I wanted my own henna hand.