Digital art print of the original artwork. 
Media: Giclée print on archival paper.
Size: A5
 
Fish curry and rice taste different in the home of a fisherwoman.
That afternoon, I sat on a plastic chair that Mahalakshmi dragged across the sandy floor of her hut and ate a meal she had cooked for me. A portion of her home also functions as the only post office in Dhanushkodi, the tip of Southern India. It was a fact that felt both ordinary and astonishing, as if life here had learned to hold many roles at once.
People in Dhanushkodi eat only what the sea gives them that day. Not yesterday’s fish. Not fish kept overnight. There are no elaborate masalas, no attempts to disguise or impress. The fish moves from sea to pan with a simplicity that feels almost reverent. Fresh fish tastes different. It tastes honest.
Because everything else must be brought from Rameswaram, meals here are made with restraint. Not out of lack of imagination, but out of necessity. Lunch was crab fry, a watery fish curry with two kinds of fish, and white rice. I ate with a driver from a fishing truck, the son of one of the elders, and a baby goat who drank milk from a vessel nearby, unconcerned by the seriousness of the adults.
“Use both your hands,” Mahalakshmi said, when I hesitated over the crab. The men showed me how it was done. You chew every part of the shell and spit it out. It was messy. It was joyful. It was correct.
The hut stood between two vast bodies of water, the Indian Ocean on one side and the Bay of Bengal on the other. The sea was close enough to feel like a witness. I was a stranger, but I was not treated like one. When the heat made me sweat, Mahalakshmi fanned me with a plastic paddle and told me stories, her voice steady and generous. I remember thinking that comfort does not always come from abundance. Sometimes it comes from attention.
When I tried to pay her before leaving, she refused. I insisted. I told her it was for my happiness. She hesitated, then accepted. And then she gave half of it back.
It is a familiar truth, and yet it always surprises me. That those who have the least are often the ones who give most freely.