It begins, as so many stories do, with ships. The sea was restless. The men aboard them—sunburnt, sick, and starved—knew little of their destination beyond the promise of spice and salvation. Somewhere east, beyond the line where maps ran out and myth began, lay a land spoken of in merchant tales and monastery chronicles. India: rich, vast, unknowable.
The Portuguese came with God on their lips and cannon in their holds. They came for pepper, but brought with them something else entirely—a red pod, fiery and unfamiliar, nestled in their cargo. It would take root in Indian soil and, in time, in Indian tongues.
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