This morning, the tractor battery was dead again. Like our borewell, it gives up just when the work is most needed. I listened to an old Ilaiyaraaja song on my transistor and watched the parrots—such green!—while the sun came up, thinking some problems are the same in any language.

A new school block near our village sits with locked computer lab since last monsoon, waiting for some minister's signature on a funds release. Meanwhile, our children go to Raman chettan’s tea shop to see a mobile phone chess game, huddled around one cracked screen. Some progress moves slower than my old tractor in clay mud, I tell you.

That Kargil Vijay Diwas fell during paddy transplanting season this year, so our panchayat kept the flag-hoisting for 6 AM sharp before the borewell timings kicked in. I was watching the clouds—some monsoon birds, maybe a cattle egret—while the village youth sang patriotic songs over a scratchy mike. These anniversary remembrances are necessary, but I wonder: how many of those jawans had fathers who also gambled on a bad rain forecast and lost a season's crop? We talk of security on the mountains, but down here in Thanjavur district, the security of four litres of water per square metre of field is what keeps me awake.