At 1/640, Main Road, Keechankuppam—once a prosperous fishing hamlet—Valli, Vijaykumar, Kokila and Neela have returned to perform a ceremony for the dead patriarch of the house. Valli’s husband Venkatachalam died 16 days ago. Nothing remains of the house: the roof has been blown away, the burnt walls are lined with soot. Son Vijaykumar says their houses had been burnt down post-tsunami. By who? "We don’t know. Some say gas cylinders caught fire when rescue workers decided to burn bodies they could not extricate from the debris. But others tell us that the houses were deliberately set afire."