Fountain Head

When the notification arrived, it was only a few lines long. It said my travel for the second AC fare would be reimbursed so I could receive a prize from Honourable Minister Shri Jitendra Singh in New Delhi. It was short on detail and long on meaning. The third prize for my case study at IIPA was real, and I was going to Delhi to collect it. Getting there was its own small drama. My second sleeper tickets sat on the waitlist, and I watched the status like a stock ticker. One ticket moved to RAC, then to confirmed. The return journey on the Tamil Nadu Express followed the same nervous pattern. I half expected a last-minute cancellation to undo everything, but the thought of standing before the nation’s top public administration leaders, and of attending the 72nd Annual General Body Meeting, kept me going. On a cold Thursday morning, I took the metro to Chennai Egmore and boarded the Thirukkural Express, coming down from Kanyakumari and bound for New Delhi. My RAC berth was tucked into...

  Jailer 2: A Superstar’s Own Review As told by Muthuvel Pandian In the first part Jailer, I was a quiet grandfather who cooked for his family and seemed to have left his jailer days behind. The trailer of Jailer 2 shows that Muthuvel never actually went into hiding. The guilt of what I did to my own son, and the secret I kept from my family, follows me into the sequel, and it is the real story underneath the guns.  The way in. I take on Bhaskar and the waterworks workers, and that fight gets me into Moorthy’s gang as his driver. It is a jailer’s patience at work: sit at the wheel, stay quiet, and let the enemy trust the man who drives him. Inside that world I save a group of friends. Hrithik is one of them, and with him are Jackie Shroff, Shivarajkumar and Mohanlal. Mohanlal returns as Matthew, my trusted ally from the jailer days. Each big name arrives with weight.  The first half moves like a bullet. Just as in Jailer , I take down a villain’s man in his own den, in ...

  On Day One, I rode from Poonamallee to Vadapalani in about 40 minutes. The same trip on Mount-Poonamallee Road used to mean 70 to 90 minutes of dust, detours and negotiation with fate. I stepped off at Vadapalani, walked straight across to the Green Line without touching a street, and thought: this is what a city sounds like when it finally exhales. But a good first ride makes you greedy. Here is what I’d ask of the metro’s future phases, in the spirit of a passenger who has just tasted what is possible. Lesson 1: Never Open a Line with Holes in It The ride was smooth and fast until Porur. Then the train swept past six stations (Alapakkam, Karambakkam, Valasaravakkam, Alwarthirunagar, Saligramam and Avichi School/Virugambakkam) because they were still waiting on finishing work and safety approvals. Those stops sit in some of the densest streets on Arcot Road. They serve the school run, the hospital visit and the Saturday market, so skipping them is a bit like serving birya...

  I stand at the edge of Azhiyar Dam again, four years later, and my hands are shaking—though not from fear this time. The water below glimmers the same way it did in 2022, but the peace I felt on that fateful day seems like a lifetime ago. That afternoon, I was simply walking along the dam near the Vethathri Maharishi headquarters, lost in the kind of tranquility that only nature can offer. The collected river waters sparkled below me, the air was crisp, and I felt completely at ease. It was the perfect escape. Then, in what felt like seconds but changed everything, that peace shattered. Someone—I still don't know who—had released a bee hive nearby. What happened next is a blur of terror and chaos. The swarm came at me with a fury I'd never imagined. I ran, but where could I go? On all sides, they came—dozens, then hundreds of them. My body became their target, and within moments, I was covered in stings, each one burning like a tiny flame against my skin. I tried everythi...

The sea near the Ashtalakshmi temple doesn't hurry. It took my Ganesha the way it takes everything else, slowly, one wave at a time, until the clay went soft and the shape went back into the water. I stood there with wet feet and turmeric on my fingers, and I didn't pray for anything. A thought came to me instead, and it has stayed with me since. I walked home in a few minutes. My parents were waiting there. A decade ago, this same festival started an argument in our house. My parents did not believe in buying an idol, keeping it at home and then immersing it. That wasn't how things were done in our family, and in their view it didn't need to start. I thought it did. I pushed and I insisted, and that year Ganesha came home, and that year he went into the water. I've done it many times since, wherever life has placed me. I've immersed him on the east coast and on the west coast. In Hyderabad I've carried him to the Musi and to Tank Bund, where a whole cit...

  மதுரை · 11 September 2026 அன்பு தாய்மார்களே Prof. Solomon Pappaiah · சாலமன் பாப்பையா 1936–2026 Tamil scholar · teacher · நடுவர் of some twelve thousand pattimandrams திருக்குறள் 423 · அறிவுடைமை எப்பொருள் யார்யார்வாய்க் கேட்பினும் அப்பொருள் மெய்ப்பொருள் காண்ப தறிவு. eppoRuL yaaryaarvaayk kEtpinum appoRuL / meyppoRuL kaaNba thaRivu Whatever the matter, and from whosever mouth it is heard — to see in it the true thing: that is wisdom. பொங்கல் afternoon, the plates cleared, the television on for the one programme everyone in the house agrees about. Four speakers on two benches. A topic no professor would call literature — who builds a good family, the husband or the wife? And at the table between the benches, an old teacher in a white shirt, hands folded, waiting his turn. He waits a long time. He lets them finish. Then he stands, says அன்பு தாய்மார்களே , and the room goes quiet the way a classroom goes quiet. For four decades that was the sound of a Tamil holiday. On Friday, 11 Sep...