Lotus flower with Om symbol on a limb

The rain has been coming sideways across the market since Tuesday, and Mr Okafor's awning has torn again, so I am writing this under the tea urn with my coat spread over the crates. You will laugh, but I have started selling the lotus bulbs you pulled out of the canal behind the depot last spring. Nobody wants a pot of mud in February. Yesterday a boy of about nine stopped at my stall with his gran and asked why the flower in the bowl was still shut when the card showed it open. I told him it opens when it is warm enough to bother, which is what Amma used to say about everything.

The bud pushed up through the grey water on Thursday, pink at the tips and blue underneath, like someone had dipped it in the sky and forgotten to wring it out. I set the bowl beside the urn so the steam could reach it. The gran bought a card with a gold om stamped on the front, and she pressed it to her lips before she put it in her handbag. Amma's old brass tin still sits on the shelf at home with the same symbol scratched into the lid, and I think of her every time I open it for the good tea.

She told us the om was the sound the world made before anyone was there to hear it, and that the lotus was the only flower that grew straight out of the muck and came up clean. I used to think that was a dull sort of wisdom. I am less sure now, standing in a puddle with my hands going numb.

The rain stopped this morning. The bloom had fully opened in the night, every petal lifted as if it had been waiting for the noise to quieten. The boy came back with his coins in a fist and asked if he could take it home. I wrapped the bowl in the Evening Standard and gave it to him. Come for the spring fair, Dev. Bring the bulbs.

Your sister, Nisha