Houseboats look to Onam for revival
The Hindu
Only around 40% of the registered vessels are currently conducting services
Babu R. has been associated with the houseboat sector for more than two decades. After initially working as an employee in a vessel, he had bought a houseboat. The business, he says, was going smoothly until the great deluge of 2018. “What the 2018 and 2019 floods could not do, has been done by COVID-19. The pandemic has brought the houseboat industry to its knees and upended the lives of people like me,” Mr. Babu says.More Related News

Away from the memorial of saint-composer Thyagaraja in Thiruvaiyaru, where his 179th aradhana is marked by five days of uninterrupted concerts, unchavritti and rendering of the Pancharatna kritis, a parallel aradhana is under way in Thanjavur. In the narrow Varagappa Iyer Lane off the bustling South Main Street, devotees queue up at a house named after Thyagaraja. It is here that the idols of Rama, Sita, Lakshmana, Bharata, Shatrughna and Anjaneya, worshipped by Thyagaraja himself, are preserved, along with a portrait of the saint-composer said to have been drawn by his disciples.












