Why unnecessarily create a row? I’ll keep quiet, Let it go… The slumbering Beast is stirring now

Whenever I argue, I am shouted down: Why argue with a bunch of clowns? The Beast is on the move

The discourse has changed, the stage is set The Beast is almost everyone’s pet The Beast is marching st...

It all started with an SMS from Rama yesterday, saying, “Sunder’s friend, Swami Nischala passed away this morning. Rams told me to pass on the message.”
Badri, who was in Salem, had also got this message and another from Ramsub on his phone; and had SMSed Ramsub to ask if this was Swami Nisarga (Sh...

Just as we were breathing a sigh of relief — the Badam tree coming alive, various native trees flowering, a little green all around; yesterday, the Ashes part of Omar Khayyam’s verse came true: Our fence across the road went up in flames.

Varun noticed the fire when it was near the gate, and all...

“The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes — or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face
Lighting an hour or two — is gone.”
 — Omar Khayyam

Well, those two days of rain a fortnight ago, kindled our Worldly Hope, and after some ten days, the Badam put out its...

I am not sure how many of you reading this have visited us during the monsoons. One of the features of our roof -”there”, where the two roofs meet, above the bookshelves- is that it has leaked almost from the very beginning, and has defied all attempts at fixing the problem.

The Cement channel was...

This Election season, we saw the townification of Karumandurai. In earlier years, rallies in Karumandurai would involve youngsters on bikes with flags doing the rounds of all the villages.This year the number of rallies in the villages was fewer, but EPS himself kicked off his campaigning in Kar...

Most of you who have visited here have heard about, if not experienced our water crisis.

In the early pre-electricity years, it would be the well drying up in summer; our having to deepen it; with all the associated moving the pump down, longer belt for the engine etc. Some of you have had to ca...

I went to Karumandurai yesterday to shop, and it was abuzz with a story that seemed to have no redeeming features at all.

There had been an accident at Pirivu road: A biker had been crushed under the 4.25 Ramani coming from Salem. The consensus seemed to be that the biker was drunk and had jumpe...

Sonati and Badri are away in Bangalore, so I left Varun to finish cooking, and went to Karumandurai this morning to shop.
As I finished at Kasi Chettiar’s place, we heard the buzz of raised voices and a whole lot of strangers walking along the opposite row of shops.
Kumar told me that these were “...

About a month and a half ago, Perumal, newly-married son of (Rogue) Annamalai came to cut grass for his cow. It began to rain, and he sheltered in the cowshed.

The next day he came along with his younger brother Venkatesh and his wife Deepa. It began to drizzle and they all headed for the cowshed....

After some hundred posts here, we have moved to Medium: Thekambattu

See you there.

https://medium.com/thekambattu

It has been a year since we lost our dear Ma/Abei. We have been remembering her through the year, of course; during some poetry readings, or at some sudden thought. Here are some photos, and a poem (by Rumi) that we would like to share.

A candle is made to become entirely flame.
In that annih...

On Monday evening there was a shower, and Varun went out in the rain, as all of us usually do. After a little while, he felt itchy and came in: We took a look and saw that his whole body was turning red.

We had him bathe in tank water and gave him a dose of homeopathy (Belladonna 200). This seems...

Yesterday evening, the cats suddenly came in growling, which usually means that someone is coming up the slope. Or perhaps that monkeys are around. Sonati went out to look, and then called me to see: A peacock.

The boys and she have seen them before, fleeting glimpses, which I have always contri...

Once upon a time — it really was once upon a time — we used to sing the boys to sleep with these Deshi ditties. (I used to ad lib and substitute Tamil lines where the Deshi escaped me.) Sonati drew her “postcard” pictures, and bound it all into a book.

She had learnt these verses as a child, gro...

Our anger continues as does the feeling of impotence. The scary part is how the narrative has been laid out, so that many people who have no cause to feel any fear, are afraid to counter it. If you are not "with us", why then, you must be a black-marketeer or counterfeiter or terrorist.

The statem...

Anger is the predominant emotion Sonati and I feel when we talk about demonetisation. And a sense of impotence: How does one respond to Messrs Modi,  Jaitley and co.'s cavalier "at the stroke of the midnight hour" act, the consequences of which ordinary people have to bear in the name of patriotism?...

[caption id="attachment_765" align="aligncenter" width="800"] last jack hanging[/caption]

This year, our jackfruits have been ripening rather late... about a month later than in other years. Someone got impatient a month ago and stole one of the low-hanging fruit. This roused Arunachalam, who is...

One day, last month, Govindraj came with the afternoon milk and said that there were policemen at the turn-u who were checking Driver's licences and RC books. Govindraj didn't know the details, but apparently the previous evening, either Terthagiri had attacked his cousin Devendran or the other wa...

When Sridhar first mooted the idea of us meeting 80 Teach For India fellows, our first thought was "Where will they sit?", and then, "We don't even have 10 tumblers". But Sridhar said that those were not issues. The group would come from Vellimalai, we wouldn't have to feed them, and we would ha...