One day I was invited to play badminton with the factory workers by Mr Veluchamy. I instantly said yes and was then told that we leave at 5.30am, matches start from 6am. Guess everyone must like early starts in Rajapalayam. The workers play at this time most mornings so felt a bit of pressure representing the UK. Mr Veluchamy said there will be around four or five of us playing the next morning. When we arrived at the indoor sports hall at the school, it seemed ...

8-12 October 2012 My apartment in Rajapalayam was located next to a cotton mill, where most of the mill managers live with their families. During the the course of the week I was looked after by two very generous managers, Mr Ramanan and Mr Veluchamy. I had coffee and dinner with their families often. The town has a long history of cotton growing and textile production. The mill is run by a family who also established the school, Sri Ramana Vidyalaya, in 2004. ...

I took an internal flight to Madurai to reach a town called Rajapalayam, where I'd be teaching English in a school and staying with the local factory workers for around a week. As I stepped off the plane at Madurai airport at around 6:30pm I was greeted by a severe tropical thunder storm. I met the driver who only speaks the local language, Tamil. Bags in the loaded in the car, I turned on my iPod for the two hour journey to Rajapalayam. To say the roads were t...