senses

Let’s get this right out of the way: yes, there are open sewers. Yes, they can smell truly awful. There are certain streets in Tiruvannamalai where they are especially… breath-taking, even when they’re mostly covered with slabs of concrete. You learn to walk across them on an exhale, or if you have to walk parallel to them, stay as far across the street as possible. I don’t remember it being quite as strong last time I was here. Either the rain last month made it more noticeable, or perhaps I had blocked the memory. Sometimes you’ll catch a whiff of …