After recounting Sri City musings and Chennai quirks, Author Prajwal Parajuly bids goodbye

When we first spoke of my writing a column about life in Sri City, my editor and I decided I’d pen eight installments. The idea was that this wide-eyed Himalayan kid would chronicle the wonders of living in rural Andhra Pradesh. There would be ruminations on idli and chutney, Japanese restaurants and Korean menus, monkey infestations and house parties. Eight pieces became 10. Ten became 12. Twelve became 15. I don’t even know what number this story is, but it’s time for the weekly column to gracefully bow out. The editors at The Hindu have become friends. They now know exactly when to expect a message from me.

Week after week, I look forward to the word play in the headlines and decks they concoct. Week after week, I look forward to Saai the illustrator’s rendition of me in glorious caricature.

The past four months, I have greatly enjoyed letting you into my little slice of Sri City and Chennai, both of which have become homes in that strange way I wouldn’t like to give much thought to. This weekly column is, by far, the most disciplined thing I have attempted. I become insufferable when I write against deadlines. When the deadline is weekly, the self-righteousness compounds.

To be honest, I had initially thought I’d give up after a couple of weeks. What, after all, was there to write about a city few knew existed? I surprised myself.

Yes, I wrote about luxuriating in home deliveries in Sri City and about my quest for the perfect dim sum in Chennai.I wrote about finding a cook who doesn’t understand my oil rationing and about getting my Hindu on at the Kapali temple. I deliberated on clubs and restaurants. I knew declaring the Madras Club the best club in the country would wound half the world, but I had little idea that a story listing what I loathed about Chennai would be better read than all the other pieces combined. At the end of the day, I guess we are all a tad masochistic.

The best part about the ample love and some derision that came my way was encountering emotional readers, invested readers, meticulous readers, the kind who found holes in stories. Take, for instance, the gentleman who decided that I had misrepresented the size of the gap between my bathroom wall and ceiling. He stated — correctly, I must confess — that the wall separating my two bathrooms didn’t go only three-quarters of the way up but four-fifths of the way. Or that one poet who told me that the Chennai airport was like his mother — mother! — and that no one should insult his mother. Or the genius who declared, with the conviction only a South Asian male can muster, that I wrote about all the partners of The Hindu as though Tulika Books and the Kapali temple and Murugan Idli ran ads worth millions in the paper. Just yesterday I was accused — good-naturedly, I hope — of making a story out of something as trivial as my beloved driver’s sneeze.

For every heartfelt reaction, well-meaning people wondered if writing about the competition between Japanese restaurants in a town no one cares about was judicious use of space. “You need to talk about politics,” a friend said. “You could comment on what’s happening to our country.” I could, yes, but why would I want to do that? The chase for the perfect dosa stuffing keeps me up at night. The rave reviews some restaurants receive fill me with wrath. I don’t want to be friends with anyone who doesn’t feel strongly about Kappa Chakka Kandhari’s cloud pudding. I am offended that it hasn’t yet found a place on our State-dinner menu. I want to give the light-hearted and the happy-making stuff its due. If you’d like to read about all the evils plaguing the country, there’s always Twitter.

For now, though, it’s goodbye. Thank you for the love. I shall soon resurface on these pages (and the Weekend pages). I will likely continue writing about southern living, if only slightly less frequently. But I’ll also write about my life in the Himalayas and my life in New York and my life up in the air, all of which can’t be justifiably encompassed under the “Southern Living” umbrella. I am particular about mundane matters like that. If you’d like me to address topics close to your heart, dear reader, please talk to me. You aren’t one to mince words, I know. Until then, re-read all the Southern Living pieces like you will be quizzed on them. Vanakkam.

Prajwal Parajuly is a novelist. Karma and Lola, his new book, is forthcoming in 2026. He teaches Creative Writing at Krea University and oscillates between New York City and Sri City.