Tsunami and the Chola country

Via my sitemeter, today I noticed this new blog by Veena -- Yossarian Lives, and her excellent post titled Tsunami and the Chola country. It's undoubtedly one of the best blog posts that I've read in recent times. In fact it's a piece written by her around a year ago. Dilip's fine reports from the tsunami affected coasts, to which I had linked two days ago, inspired Veena to post it in her blog. Blogging sometimes can be very rewarding, and sometimes the rewards come quickly!

Growing up with Kalki Krishnamoorthy narratives -- "with mouthfuls of sambar and rice" as a kid, via English translations later while afflicted with DISDI syndrome(!), Veena feels strongly to retrace the footsteps of a Kalki protagonist. In her words,

I wanted to travel where he traveled a millennium ago. I was overcome by a feeling of belonging, something that I have never felt before with respect to the Cauvery belt. The thought that for hundreds of years, the water from Ponni irrigated my forefathers’ lands, gave us the grains that enabled us to survive, and that the water still flows in my veins today gave me a totally new perspective on what Alex Haley would call ‘Roots’. So it was in the month of January, a year and half ago, I convinced my parents that I wanted to do a quick tour of what’s left of the once mighty Chola Empire. My mother was ecstatic at the thought of her agnostic daughter actually setting out to visit one shrine after the other all through Chola land.

And her post takes us through the Chola country. It's her "tribute to a beautiful novel and a great empire", and to the victims and survivors of the tsunami. Do read the full thing.