"They sell fish and buy cars," said my friend and host, most matter-of-factly, as we watched a shiny white sedan draw up by the dusty track outside the house. She was referring to the rapid replacement, over the past decade, of lush paddy fields by aquaculture ponds that brought quick riches for a large number of entrepreneurs in the region. Of course, there are also several stories of those quick bucks making an equally quick exit, but there's no denying that West Godavari is one of the most prosperous areas in the undivided state of Andhra Pradesh. But I wasn't really here to engage in an economic analysis of the district. I was, in fact, here to disengage from analysis and simply take that much needed break from a non-stop series of deadlines. It was the first step in taking my own advice seriously (ref: my previous post). So, here are a few moments from that pause in my city-fied routine. I find myself, an unlikely pilgrim at the Ramana Kendram in Jinnuru
making sense of the everyday