‘Andal’s butterfly, Vasur? Tell me.’
‘You are knowing her Tiruppavai. Then there is her Nacciyar Tirumoli. Andal is no longer an innocent girl in love with Krishna. She takes us deeper in a kind of twilight language. After her wedding dream, there is the seventh Song of the Conch.’
O right whorling Valampuri you need not search for sacred rivers—you dwell in the hand of red lotus-eyed Krishna, you bathe in the nectar of god’s own mouth.
Vasur paused and took a long leaf from a tree, rolling it into a tight cylinder. He whistled through one end, making a sound not dissimilar to the calling of a bird we could hear from the undergrowth. The bird stopped, then started again.
‘Try,’ Vasur said, handing me the leaf, but the sound I made was all breath and no song. He continued their duet unt
