A pond for storing water. Most such ponds are walled in, and have underground canals that lead from all over the village to the common pond. This pond still provides the drinking water for the village. The Tamil word for these ponds, oorani, is a play on two meanings of the word "oor". The first meaning is "town" and the second meaning is "to seep". Describes both how the pond is formed and who owns it.
The man is selling "nongu" (fruits of a type of palm tree). The kids thought it was jello (it has that texture and translucent color) and wanted to know how the man got the jello into the coconut. The poor fellow would have been even more bewildered if he had understood the question.
This year, the rains were very good, so normally arid land has become a marsh. I see lots of folks fishing in land I remember dry and caked in mud. The sarong-like thing the guy is wearing is called a lungi and is likely an influence from South-east Asia.
This flower is called a "Nagalingam" flower. Naga means snake and a lingam is a phallus. Not sure why ... it looks neither like a snake nor like a phallus to me.
And to close, a photo that S1 (our six-year-old) took when we were briefly stopped by the side of the road. He wanted to take a picture of the "recycling stuff". I didn't have the heart to correct him.
No comments:
Post a Comment