A restful weekend. How on earth can it be only a week since our arrival?

January 10th 

Yesterday, Saturday, was a much quieter day after the busy schedule of Friday. We were invited to lunch chez Balaji and family, then were going to Poonsollay to see a family  whom Pam and BrIan befriended during their original visits in 2004 and 2004, and finally for supper with Selvi, who has been an old friend of visitors from Bishopston since the Link began back in 1978. Since it would be dark as we left Selvi's we knew we couldn't risk cycling along the terrifying road back to RUHSA, so we did the whole day in taxis, largely  auto-rickshaws, which buzz along the pot-holed back roads to the villages, and will dice bravely with the fast and furious traffic of the high street also. Best to avert the eyes and pray. Ganesh idols are often handily displayed in the windscreen..

Balaji had honestly admitted that if he had his way he would give us lunch every day at his home, so anything less than this is a disappointment to him. This was our second meal in under a week, and whilst we are delighted to go there, his family being so very warm and hospitable, and their food quite delicious, nonetheless we have a real dilemma because this family has a very restricted income (Balaji does not have work every day, his father is now an invalid, his brother has a temporary contract only, having lost his job in the closure of the Bishopston Trading company). So making special meals for us is a real imposition for them economically, but they will never give us anything less than the warmest welcome. Pam has adopted a kind of Mary Berry role, I notice. Perhaps her transformation into Domestic Goddess, affected over a delicious Christmas cake, large slices of which we have consumed with our evening cuppa, has gone a bit to her head. At any rate she announced during our delicious spread that Santa's wodday (lentil cakes) definitely win first prize amongst all the many we sample in different venues, as we eat ourselves to Jumbo size in and around the villages of KVKuppam. The rest of the jury of greedy English visitors all agreed readily wtih this verdict.

Santa handing out her prize-winning lentil cakes.

From here we went to Poonsollay, a village perhaps one kilometre away. We had a rendez-vous with Selvi, who was going to help interpret for our conversations with the families here. Pam and Brian met several families in this agricultural village when they came out for extended stays in order to write an education pack/ website on aspects of life in an Indian village, for use with the National Curriculum, in primary schools. These families, particularly one woman, the matriarch, were extremely helpful and let Pam just watch them going about their daily lives. Pam had seen one couple from the family at the hospital with their son, who has problems in his urinary tract and had been an inpatient last week. When we got to the house we found the father at home with the young boy, but all of the women had gone off to the temple. Selvi said that it was Hannuman, the Monkey god's birthday and this might be why they had all gone. The father, Suresh, cut us down some coconuts and made a hole for us to drink the coconut water. Then he cut the nut in half and revealed a tiny coconut under all the husk- evidence that in recent years the coconuts have not had enough water.

Pam with Uma, and more women toiling under a hot sun in the paddy fields

Then we saw another woman from a neighbouring family, Uma, who was busy transplanting rice seedlings. She greeted us warmly and emerged briefly from the  muddly paddy field to say hello. She pointed out her daughter, who is doing her first year of a Chemistry BSc course,who  was helping out with the work. It is clearly all hands on deck for this mammoth task, being performed in so  many fields in the area at the moment. Again a delight to hear of another village girl doing really well academically. So much has changed and continues to change in villages in this state, with regard to cultural attitudes to girls. Educational success is now increasingly prized for girls and mariages are being delayed until after qualification. Santi, Balaji's sister in law, who has two small girls, told us that the Tamil Nadu government gives a bursary to parents who have a second daughter, which they can access when the girl turns eighteen. This is in acknowledgement of the expense that a girl will bring (at marriage, when she has a baby, - all the expenses have to be paid by the family of the girl). Such a bursary is to encourage parents to see a girl as a positive, and to discourage female infanticide/ termination of female foetus. 

We fixed a date to return with Selvi to this village next week, when hopefully more of the family will be available. We then went with Selvi to the nearby house of a business man called Ravi. Next door to his house is his factory for making milk products, particularly something called Cova- sweetened boiled milk products  for making Indian sweets. Ravi was just a local lad  from a poor family, and has made a very successful business through very hard work. He has built himself, his wife and his family of four children a huge and very showy house. We have seen many examples of these palatial residences going up over the last few years in the area. There are still a lot of unresolved problems regarding the closure of the Bishopston Trading company - which is a sad and complex tale- and Selvi most certainly wanted to offload to us about them. We continued to her home in Tuthitangel, where she lives with her mother, a lovely lady whom we have known for many years and who is always so delighted to see us all. Second delicious and huge meal of the day was served up here, of course. Selvi and her mum are superb cooks, and Mary Berry decided that Selvi's mum must be awarded first prize for her dosai- a kind of rice flour pancake. She is not wrong in this judgment!