It is not always you meet great group of people when you go for conferences. Most times you just end up wishing for conferences to get over so that you can go back home. Other times you find amazing company that you have a blast irrespective of how the conference goes. I’m not sure if…
Category: Culture
Festivities in a rural town
There was never a short of festivals when you are growing up in rural areas. More so when you are close to river, in the banks of perennial river Periyar. People from across the district come to our village for cleansing the idols before the pooja. Often, apart from priests the group also contains folk…
An old Ambassador car and a watch that ticks MGR’s grave
I recently visited late Chief Minister MG Ramachandran memorial house in Arcot Road, T.Nagar. You would think that memorial house of politician who died 30 years ago would invite hardly any enthusiasm. MGR, as he is fondly called, is obviously an exception. He was an actor-turned-politician who served as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu…
South Indian’s obsession with curd rice
One of the perks of being a business journalist is that you get to eat in fancy hotels, where more often than not wonderful array of mouthwatering delicacies from pasta salads to exotic desserts are spread before you. But no matter how much I drool over those refined dishes, my eyes always look for that…
Nagercoil Summer diary: Nungu Sharbat
Summer in Nagercoil is not pleasant. It is hot and humid. Air that blows is so hot that your eyes are burning all day. You sweat all over. But there are rewards though when you go out brazing the blazing sun, like Nungu Sharbat. You could say it is the watermelon and tender coconut equivalent…
Walking down the memory lane in Nagercoil, a small town I grew up in
I remember evenings the most as I was growing up in a small town in the Southern tip of India, Kanyakumari. Memories of receding sunlight that breaks through the branches of a neem tree; birds returning to their nests after the day’s hunt; a group of five or six children including me playing hide and…
Vinayakar Chaturthi: When eating kozhukattai is all you think about
If there is one thing that I look forward as Vinayagar Chaturthi dawns, it is the thought of eating endless supply of kozhukattai my mother would make that morning. Those sweet filled dumpling and the kaaram (it is a bit spicy to accompany the sweet)ones, I would eat them all day in installments. These dumpling are…
When you are a Tambrahm and cannot sing
Oh! the irony of being a tambrahm and not being able to sing. I’m a Tamil brahmin and I really cannot sing. This is partially due to my inability to understand ragas and lack of interest in carnatic music, something my parents never understood. It is not that I have anything against the music…
India’s Godmen culture
Godmen. Demigods for whom people are ready to die for. Godmen. A term so loosely used in India, where there are thousands of Godmen with crores of followers. Godmen. A topic I had always wanted to write about but never had the confidence that I could do justice. But I’m still going to give it…
My first memory of Madras, 20 years ago
The memory of my first time in Madras is still clear. It was probably 1996 when Madras was still Madras and yet to become the Chennai it was today. That feeling of awe I felt when I first got down in the Egmore railway station, which was foreign yet exhilarating, is something I don’t think…
When work takes you to 12th Century Samburavayar dynasty
I wonder when was the last time I was in the midst of lush green paddy fields surrounded by mountains and smell of tilled earth. It had just stopped raining when I reached Padavedu, the capital of Sambuvarayar dynasty during 12th Century Chola period and four hours from Chennai. The small town under the scorching…
Tattoo culture in India, then and now
Tattoos. I had always wanted one but kept away from it for various reasons, pain being the number one. I have wondered why people would want to undergo the pain to get themselves inked. I have asked my friend who got himself two tattoos. According to him it a form of expression. Something he feels…
A journalist's diary 