We had a lovely time playing Holi in a friend’s apartment building…but the friend’s brother kept repeating, “Why don’t we organize a Tamizh New Year’s Day? Why must we only have North Indian festivals?”…It made me think. I hadn’t thought of Holi as a North Indian festival, having grown up with it. ….And do we have any equivalent colourful festival? When we do, we celebrate it, like Navaratri. So what’s the beef about? Tamizh New Year is not a group festival, so why make a big hoo haa about celebrating it in public?

When we moved to Madurai, I was surprised to find many people called “Bose”…and I learnt that they changed their names to honour Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. We seem to have become more parochial since those times…