Monday, March 18

Early to rise, and up we get in time for me to find myself in the shower at 8:05. Colour me surprised.

We had a second morning of work. I caught up with my emails and made several appointments for next week. I used the email-to-Todoist feature to make these into tasks that included the original mail thread.

I then carried on working on the scripts in Scrivener on my iPad. I realised that I had never actually created a Scrivener project on my iPad before. Now I have.

When we had both finished Irma tried to find us a taxi. Vinesh had other work, as did Udaya. He asked a friend, though, so by 13:00 we had left the house in a big car proudly labelled Tourist Service in big letters; or words to that effect.

Irma had promised Shefeli that she would get some cheap saris to decorate an event in Helsinki in a few weeks’ time. Before she did this, though, we went to the Modern Book Centre.

I bought a Krishnamurti book that contained the speech he made when he dissolved the Order of the Star of the East in 1929 and waved Annie Besant goodbye. I also bought two other books, but skipped buying a very cheap copy of Complete Robots, an Isaac Asimov collection. I shall regret this at length later.

It took several hours to wander through Pothy’s and locate the saris. This time also included moments of underwear purchasing, and a lengthy trip through the in-house supermarket.

Shopping done, we leave the bustling heat of Trivandrum and head home. On the way, at a junction in the Fort district, I take some photographs of men hanging out by snack bars.

We will arrive home about 17:30. I will read and Irma will make some Skype calls.

The festival will continue to provide us with live drumming and pre-recorded dance music until late into the night.

I will search online and discover that the trumpet-sounding thing playing on top of the drumming has a name. I will learn that “the Nadasvaram is popular in South India.

It is made of wood and has a double reed mouthpiece. Usually two horns are played together, one for fixing the scale and the other the lead, as in the picture.

Vigorous drumming accompanies a Nadasvaram recital. It evolved much before loudspeakers and microphones : the piercing sound carries far across the fields. Close up, inside stone temple halls, the effect can be rather overpowering.”

Oh listen, I can hear two of them from several miles away!