Dry River Writings
On a chilly Melbourne morning in September 1998 a bunch of us gathered around a long table at the Tin Pot Café for Surya’s wedding breakfast. Of course, he wasn’t there – he was getting married in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India. So those of us who couldn’t be in Tiru marked the occasion in Fitzroy…
‘It could be worse. You could be waiting for a doctor in an Indian hospital with patients gasping all around you.’ This was a friend – a real friend – on Facebook Messenger last Saturday. An Australian, he’d made a home in Tiruvannamalai, South India, twenty years ago. And when Covid hit he’d decided to…
The middle-aged proprietor of our local news stand was sitting cross-legged in a lunghi on the pavement, chewing paan, his newspapers and magazines in neat stacks around him. ‘Do you keep Manushi journal?’ I asked. He scowled and spat a bright-red, betel-stained gob at my feet. Hmm, I thought – I might be onto something…