On Friday evening, renowned Tamil writer Perumal Murugan sat down to write about a rally in his hometown, Namakkal. It was not just any rally. Actor Vijay, leader of the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), had come there on the morning of September 27, just hours before the fatal stampede at his next stop in Karur.

Murugan’s blog post in Tamil is not a political speech. It is a vivid diary, part report, part sketch, written in the clean, unsentimental lines that he is known for. What he describes is a town reshaped by frenzy, banners that bent the sky, crowds that arrived at dawn, and an organisation as fragile as a paper screen.

“On Saturday, September 27, the first town where Vijay came and spoke was Namakkal,” Murugan begins. “Because of the Karur tragedy, the reports of the Namakkal meet

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