What kind of activities does your home lend itself to?

Oh, so many! There is, of course the garden — which I started on even before we started building the house. I’ve always been interested in gardening right from my childhood, because both my parents were enthusiastic gardeners. I think gardens are one of the most important aspects of life. I don’t go into the garden much nowadays, but I get around, spend time with my children, my grandchildren, and my daughter-in-law. If I feel like making something special for the grandchildren, I go into the kitchen. Because we’re a very social, close-knit family, we always have people coming over — my friends, my children, their friends, everybody’s friends and the extended family. This has always been an open house. We’ve had weddings, birthday parties, plenty of New Year’s celebrations with barbecues under the trees, and sadly, even some funerals.

How does your home tie in with your sense of safety and security?

I’m totally secure, totally happy, and have no fear – except for snakes. Not just in this home, but in my life, I’ve felt secure all the time, wherever I have been. I think it comes from having no expectations. Everybody praises me, saying how well my life was planned, but there was not much formal planning at all.

We never expected to settle down here. We didn’t ask to come here, we don’t know where we’re going. All we know is that here and now, we live in this house in Tarnaka. By God’s grace, we’ve lived a good life.

Where in your home do you find the greatest sense of comfort?

That would be my bedroom. I just get into bed with a nice pillow and a rug, switch on the table lamp, get a good book and read. It doesn’t matter if it’s day or night or three in the morning. This is where I am the most comfortable, with my grandsons all tangled up in the bedclothes, asleep next to me.

What is your fondest memory within this home?

There are so many of them, but if I were to choose, I think it was when my son returned from the United States and decided that he would set up home here. I was really happy and surprised that we could all live together in this way. These days, in many families, elderly parents live alone because once their children go to the US, they don’t come back to India. But I’m so lucky they did. My husband passed away three years ago and my son and daughter-in-law just decided that they wouldn’t be travelling anymore, and they came back. More importantly, and more surprising to me, is that they have no regrets.

If you were ever shipwrecked on an island, what objects from inside your home would you wish you had with you?

There’s a bag that is very valuable to me because it contains a lot of letters — letters from my parents and my children’s letters from when they were in the US. And of course, there are some documents and a lot of photographs.

What was it like meeting Annie Leibovitz?

It was the biggest surprise. Can you imagine someone like Annie Leibovitz coming down from the US to Tarnaka for a photoshoot of some unknown Mrs Thangavelu? What a thing to happen. I didn’t even realise the magnitude of it until Annie herself came on to the scene, but I was very happy with her presence because she was very human and very, very friendly.