Second time back in this sweet city on the sea….teeming with more vellai than you pass on the streets of Chennai….had a wonderful coq au vin at lunch, browsed some  pirated Tamil DVDs on the beachfront,  and just as we were leaving, we stumbled across a temple, complete with an anklet-bedecked elephant named – what else? – Laxmi.

And as elsewhere, love of fillums is obvious, from store fronts bearing  paintings of Rajni and Vijay, and posters all over: