Vazhai [TRUSTED]

She smiled, revealing teeth like broken areca nuts. “The vazhai is not a tree, son. It fruits once, then it dies. But before it dies, it gives everything. The leaf for your meal. The stem for your curry. The flower for your poriyal . The trunk for the cattle. Even the ash from the dried skin goes into the dye for the silk you wear. What man gives so much and asks for nothing but a little mud and water?”

One year, the summer was cruel. The well dried into a black throat. The vazhai leaves curled like burned paper. The neighbours dug a borewell, but Paati refused. She took her brass lota and walked two kilometers to the municipal tap every dawn, bent like an old vazhai stalk heavy with fruit. vazhai

She hung up the phone.