India, Feb. 14 -- Book: On the Banks of the Mayyazhi

Author: M Mukundan

Publisher: HarperCollins

Price: Rs 399/-

"On the Banks of the Mayyazhi", A moving saga of Mahe's people under French rule, says KUMAR CHELLAPPAN

Way back in the 1960s, in the neighbourhood of Kanjirakkadu where we have our house, lived a Tamil Nadu-born woman named Pappamma. She was one of the early migrants to Perumbavoor who came there as a sanitary worker. Pappamma, tall and lean with a dark complexion, spoke only Tamil and covered herself in a sari sans blouse/jacket. The sanitary workers from Tamil

Nadu, numbering around a dozen, were "herded" into a colony set up by the municipal authorities. They were given small tiled houses to stay in. While mornings we...