Elephant hamsa hand with mandala patterns

The brass is finally cool enough to touch. Master Ravi set the elephant in the middle of the open palm, trunk curled toward the thumb, exactly as the merchant's clerk wanted. I spent three nights on the rosettes alone, punching each petal with the small chisel your husband gave me, and by the third night my wrists ached so badly I could not hold a cup of tea.

The lotus at the top I did badly the first time. Ravi said I had drawn it like a cabbage. I sat with the plate under the lamp and wept a little, then I cut it again while the oil burned low. Nobody will see the scrollwork once the amulet is strung on its cord, he told me, but the gods see everything, and the spiral on the wrist is the one I am proudest of.

The caravan leaves for the river towns tomorrow. The merchant wants the hand to face outward, so that when the traders lift their palms to greet strangers, the elephant looks back at them. I asked Ravi why a hand and not a plain disc. He said a hand is what people trust, because it gives and it takes, and an elephant is what people remember.

I kept one offcut, a curl of brass the size of a fingernail with a single rosette still on it. It is folded into the blue cloth I am sending with this letter. Hold it up to the window when the sun is low and you will see the elephant's eye come through the pattern. Keep it somewhere dry. Write back before the monsoon.

Love, Meera