The oldest blood

The great-grandmother was a simple woman, devoted to God all her life, so much that God had become her only dish.

She remembered her girlhood with pride: riding her elephant every Monday to the Siva shrine, her jewel box, brocade, perfumes and oils.

She had married a prince, who loved her for only a year, before a fever killed him as she held him in her arms.

She told the children that they had the oldest blood in the world: thin, clear and fine.

In the poor and the new-rich, she said, the blood was thick and muddy, like gruel or ditch water. The poem shows her pride of birth, and the snobbery that came with it.