It is the last day of Margazhi, the coldest month, and the fire is lit in the dark of it — old mats, broken baskets, the cracked pot, the things kept for a year in case they were needed.
Indra is thanked on the same morning for the rain that made the crop, and then the house is swept out and the kolam is drawn fresh at the door.
Nothing is thrown away in anger. It is done at the hour when a house can see what it has stopped using — and by sunrise there is room.
