Tamil Nadu: He tom-tomed news of Indira Gandhi’s death

On October 31, 1984, 10-year-old P Sekhar was out spreading the news of the death of Indira Gandhi in his village of Pannaiyur, on the outskirts of Madurai. In those days, when radios and television sets were a luxury in rural India, news travelled the old way — using a ‘tom-tom’ or ‘tandora’ as it is called in Tamil. On Wednesday, the Tamil Nadu government banned the use of the ‘tandora’ for public announcements.