Margaret Kochamma's tiny, ordered life relinquished itself to this truly baroque bedlam with the quiet gasp of a warm body entering a chilly sea.

In India the new government - the members of the radical Hindu Right who want India to be a 'Hindu Nation' - they're bigots. Butchers. Massacres are their unofficial election campaigns - orchestrated to polarise communities and bring in the vote.

If you're not religious, then look at it this way. This world of ours is four thousand, six hundred million years old. It could end in an afternoon.

A sparrow lay dead on the backseat. She had found her way through a hole in the windscreen, tempted by some seat-sponge for her nest. She never found her way out. No one noticed her panicked car-window appeals. She died on the backseat, with her legs in the air. Like a joke.

I'm not somebody who plans my life. In fact, I don't know what's going to happen here in India, it's such a strange climate here at the moment. So very worrying.

Cage the People, Free the Money. The only thing that is allowed to move freely - unimpeded - around the world today is money... capital.

May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun.