After the Monsoon, We Gather Threads

Each thread here remembers a hand—my mother’s, my grandmother’s, women whose names are now only patterns. I salvaged old saris from a cousin’s wedding, the coir from a torn sleeping mat, bark from the path behind our house after the first rains. Everything split and rejoined, as if the monsoon could undo and then remake us new. I thought of wounds, but also of skins—what we let heal, what we let show. The metallic threads resist the cotton, fighting then yielding, leaving stitches that shimmer almost with regret. I worked late, sometimes undoing hours for the sake of a single seam that felt true. Some stains are from dye, some from tears I didn’t want to explain. When the piece finally hung, swelling and trembling in the air, it felt less like an object than a breath I’d carried too long. The story isn’t whole—but it’s alive. Mystery doesn’t demand closure, only witness.