Between Dr. Ambedkar and the goddess, she waits for the morning to move.

The flowers came before the light did. That is how it always is at KR Market. The city is still deciding whether to wake up and already the marigolds are here, the jasmine, the loose green leaves piled higher than a man’s head. The vendors arrive in the dark and build their worlds before anyone comes to buy from them.

She is sitting in hers now. The wall behind her is pink above, red below. The colours of a temple town. The colours of somewhere that has always known what it believes. On that wall she has arranged what matters. Dr. Ambedkar in his suit, chin up, the Parliament of India behind him like a promise he kept. Beside him, the goddess, gold-framed, garlanded with dried flowers that have been there so long they’ve forgotten what colour they used to be. He fought for this. Not in some grand abstract sense. For exactly this, the right to sit here, in the middle of a city, selling greens, taking up space, owing nobody an explanation. She knows that. She doesn’t say it. She doesn’t need to. The morning is taking its time. The buyers will come when they come.

The way you are present when you have nowhere else to be and no reason to pretend otherwise. Dr. Ambedkar watches the market. The goddess watches the market. She watches something further away something the camera cannot follow. The morning will move when it is ready.