Chandra stood up and straightened out her back. There was only mild stiffness from hours of toiling close to the earth. The older ones took longer to smooth out their spines. For some, like her amma, they remained closer to the earth on a permanent basis. Amma said the soil and the vegetables pulled them nearer, and they had a deeper connection after years of communing together.  When Chandra talked with her grandmother these days, unless she was sitting down, it was to the top of her gray head. 

Amma looked especially frail today, worn down by life in the gardens, and the dance of time. She was the oldest of the Andra, and yet even she had not experienced the voyage from the motherland. She knew the old tales, but they were handed down from her mother. She could recite the history of the Andra all the way back to Malaya and the Great Flood. Chandra loved the old stories and devoured them as quickly as she ate her evening meal. However, she especially loved the story of the Great Journey, and the time the Andra had given up their homeland and migrated to the gardens of Varstad and their present life.