Uncle looks like a diminutive prophet. Starched white shirt, white veshti (the wraparound favoured in this part of the world) and white hair that’s being draped in long strands over his shoulders with a mirror’s aid. Next to the mirror, a bookshelf sagging under the weight of, among others, the complete translated works of Dostoevsky. The bookshelf is abutted by a bed, at the other end of which there are more books. Books in English and Tamil; on Islam and history; reference texts and dictionaries all piled up in cheerful chaos against the pista green wall. Some of them have made their way on to Uncle’s workstation an arm’s length away—a plastic chair and a plain table on which squats an open laptop.

Hair cogent now, Uncle peers at me from behind thick glasses: “Polama (shall we go)?” We step out on to the narrow streets of Kadayanallur together.

• Tags: Abhishek Mehrotra, India, Issue 31