Indian Writing

Appuswamy had always been harboring a small, unambitious desire – to operate an ATM machine using his wife Seetha’s card and count the crisp currency notes. Seetha knew it for certain that Appuswamy, in his early seventies, was unfit even to gently tap an electric switch and drive away the darkness and an ATM machine for him would be as unintelligible as Aero Dynamics. To keep Appuswamy’s attempts at bay, Seetha always carried a small pouch and the ATM card inside it and like Mary’s lamb, it remained inseparable from her.

Mahadevan writes an Appuswamy-Seetha Patti story.

Also check out his paean to the Jhangiri, Emperor of Tamil sweets:

Jhangiri enjoys a social status in the south. For the man who is adept at preparing Jhangiri, Mysore Pak or Laddu is too primitive, like a club player to a World Cup wonder. As Jhangiri is generally served on arrival of the bridegroom’s party at the marriage hall on the eve of the marriage in Tamilian marriages, its quality can make or mar a marriage. What more, mere absence of Jhangiri in a marriage, mellows down the merriment. If the Jhangiri is a little pliable, the groom’s granny in her nineties would start grumbling. If it is too crisp, his young aunt would resort to her taunts. If it is too sweet, the diabetic brigade ( I am an humble soldier in this brigade) would start its diatribe and if the level of sugar is low, it would be relegated to the last serve…