January 2026: Mostly in Tamil Nadu, with a train ride, fellow women cyclists, "cycling to the mountain"
[Content warning: brief discussion of dead animals; 1 graphic photo of dead people]
Most of this little monthly update is about Tamil Nadu. Here, enormous vinyl billboards like the one shown above were a daily sight along the road. They're the kind of thing that makes for a photo that is easy to share - - it kind of speaks for itself! - - but that doesn't mean they're simple: they're a world in themselves, with layers and layers of context to pick apart. Like the hairstyles, and whose photo gets to be which size, and who pays for the billboard, and why some have Ambedkar on them in a little inset portrait. I am not exaggerating when I say that not an hour went by without seeing a billboard like this.
If I am going to draw attention to the billboards to paint a picture of cycling in Tamil Nadu, I also have this compulsion to add that a daily smell while cycling here was the smell of dead animals decomposing in the bushes, garbage piles, fields, and gutters. I think these animals were generally dead dogs.
Previous monthly updates in this series:
December 2025
November 2025
October 2025
September 2025
August 2025
January 2026
Start: Howick, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
End: Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India
Written date: March 15, 2026
Themes: A train ride /// Fellow women cyclists /// "cycling to the mountain"
A train ride
We and our bikes and bags took the Tamil Nadu Express from Delhi to Chennai (Tamil Nadu), leaving Monday night and arriving Wed morning. We and 1/2 our bags rode in 2AC class, with a young family, an old lawyer, a mid-30s accountant, and a college student. Our other 1/2 of bags, and the bikes, rode in cardboard boxes in the Brake Van. Maybe the train is like a metaphor (analogy?) for the caste system: you're all hurtling along together, but you don't see each other and you can't move between different ticket classes. Can you tell I had white guilt over purchasing 2AC?
Fellow women cyclists
New sights for us in Tamil Nadu: women on bicycles!! Day and evening, younger and older. Sari or pants. What else do I want to say about this? For one thing, it's just an amazing colourful sight: a bicycle of any colour, and a women clothes in generally at least a few bright colours, riding past trees and flowers and buildings on rainbow kaleidoscope streets. For another thing, I am so happy to see freedom of movement, as incomplete as it may be, extended to 2 genders instead of 1.
"Cycling to the mountain"
I want to share that, through negligence, I broke a wheel. Bell got it rebuilt in Chennai for me, thanks to the mechanic :) After 2 months, we were riding again! Our first 4 days were very sweaty, with lots of mosquitos, and very flat. On the 4th day through the haze we saw the mountain Arunachal. New things about Tamil Nadu: big photograph billboards announcing weddings, many many dogs, banana leaf meals, vada savoury donuts, mosquitos, rice harvest, shoes optional.
A few pictures from this month (content warning: a graphic image of dead people)
Mini linkies section
This post from Laura Michet is no more and no less than a little paragraph about how she was sick and then a single line from Zohran Mamdani's swearing-in speech and a bit of personal context about it. The line is stunning, and that's one reason I'm sharing it. But I find myself returning again and again to Laura's blog because she practices what she preaches: sharing the material of one's life with specificity and without overthinking it. I always find my time on her blog helpful (and interesting). Thanks for your work Laura :-)
This is a recipe for a rich, creamy, easy chickpea curry. I shared this already in walking towards curry leaves, but my blog my rules I'm sharing it here again. I made this in South Africa, licking the sides of the pot while cooking it. Then I made it again. Then I took the base spices and method and decided the recipe was modular now, and made it work for red lentils, made it work for eggplant and soy chunks. But there's nothing quite as good as making the original recipe from Rainbow Plant Life, so do yourself a favour and make it.
Ask Polly is the advice column I come back to most often, and the post Should I Just Give Up on My Writing? in particular does not only have the incredible words "shaggy carcass" in it (who else guffawed, just me?) it has the fortifying words that I find myself needing over and over again: "I have to do what I do, even if the world decides it’s worthless. I have to follow my own compass and give it my best and hope to connect."