The forest gasped. The echo was raw, sharp, and unbearably true.
But ChattChitto had the Heart-Pot.
In the crook of an ancient banyan tree, where sunlight dripped like honey through the leaves, lived ChattChitto. He was not a squirrel, though he had a squirrel’s twitchy nose. He was not a bird, though he loved to sing. He was, simply, ChattChitto — a gatherer of tiny things: fallen jackfruit seeds, raindrops on a leaf, and most dangerously, words . chattchitto
ChattChitto froze. He had spent so long holding others’ words that he had hidden his own ache inside the Heart-Pot. Now the entire jungle knew: the cheerful gatherer was lonely. The forest gasped
He collected these echoes in a hollow gourd he called his Heart-Pot . In the crook of an ancient banyan tree,