Kodaikanal feasts those who love to be close to Mother Nature, than any other hill stations in South India. Maya Krishnan says that its minimal population and lacks of modernization that keeps the natural forests virgin to offer the visitors a haven from the fury and fumes of the fast paced life. When my friend returned to India after 3 years, she told me, “we must go somewhere else; I can’t withstand this simmering heat.” Though I too was thinking of such an ‘escape’ from the rumbling schedules of deadlines living inside the ...

Pottan Theyyam makes every one stand at their toe. Its prologue, Thottam paattu shoots questions towards the bosom of a State divided into irrational fragments of a void caste system. Rubina Shagin talks with a veteran Theyyam artist narrating the interesting incidents of ‘becoming’ and the ‘one-step-above-human activity’ involved in the performance. Shrieks and roars quivered the dusky ambit of the pompous Bhagavathy temple. The crowd gathered around stood breathless, their hands folded in reverence and fear…the red flames radiated from the pyre nearby flushed their cheeks more, the numb mass tighten their legs in the dark. ...

Gayatri Sundaram talks about Alpha Pain and Palliative Care, which stands out unique in its vision and mission from other Pain and Palliative Care units. Though executing apparently a Charitable trust, Alpha prefers to tag their activities as 'responsibilities' rather than  hallowed 'charities' by re-defining the hackneyed anecdotes of Palliative care. Being a middle brow and getting on with a charity-oriented life simultaneously is somewhat like a bravado which when realized, Mr.K.M.Noordeen, the Humanitarian Award winner at last had to prostrate at the showbiz of modern life ...

We do live in an era of pressures of umpteen varieties in which peer-pressure is the first one to come and make a tie-up with us.  As it affects the child hood and adolescence, the most sensitive stage of life, and as no child is immune to peer-pressure, it has significant role in molding and defining the cultural and behavioral standards of a person. VISHAL. L. talks about the negative as well as positive aspects of peer pressure that plays a sink-or-swim proportion in a kid’s life. A peer is an equal who is in one’s own ...

Gayatri Sundaram narrates the story of a unique mother-son relationship which sometimes may debase our prejudices and centuries old equations. It breaks all the pragmatic barriers and reaches the pinnacle of an all-for-love resolution when we came to know that the mother in the story is none other than the Nightingale of South India, S.Janaki. If Home is a place where our mother is, Abhilash has two homes, as he is blessed with two mothers – one in Pudukad, Kerala and another one in Chennai. You might ...

Maya Krishnan narrates the story of a village, which has been in a fight for the right to live for the last 60 years. It becomes the stinking issue in the political, social and cultural arena of a State known to be as ‘God’s Own Country’ and the said village is nowhere but in its Cultural Capital. (photos courtesy : The Hindu) “Culture is the cry of men in face of their destiny”, Commented Albert Camus, years before the Clean Kerala and Go Green missions kick start their ...