🌿 Mr. Sambhrani of Ponmanipudi: The Talkative Soul Who Hid Sorrow and Shared Smiles

🌸 Mr. Sambhrani of Ponmanipudi

In Ponmanipudi, there is one man who cannot walk ten steps without spinning a tale.

The villagers call him Mr. Sambhrani — because, like the sacred resin, his words rise in smoke, fill the air with fragrance, and linger long after he has gone.

“Ayyo Murugan, why are you walking so fast?” he once teased the bus driver.

“Even your shadow is panting to catch up!”

The crowd at the tea stall burst into laughter. Murugan himself smirked, pretending not to enjoy the joke.

With him, even animals are not spared.

A dog scratching its ear becomes a scholar solving a riddle. A cow swishing its tail is “sending telegrams to heaven.” Even the mynahs that perch on the banyan tree listen as though his stories are part of their syllabus.

But when someone asks him why he never grows tired of talking, he quips,

“If I keep quiet, the sun may think it’s evening and go to sleep!”

Beneath the laughter, however, Sambhrani hides a silence of his own — a grief folded carefully, like a letter never posted.

Sometimes, when the moon is full, his voice softens, his eyes turn faraway.

Just for a moment, the chatter fades, and you glimpse the man behind the mirth.

Yet by morning, he is back at the tea stall, scattering joy like confetti. “Drink tea slowly,” he tells Appuswamy, “otherwise your tongue will finish the cup before your lips do!”

And if you ask him who he admires most, he lowers his voice into a reverent hush:

“Dr. Chari. The man speaks less than I do in an entire breath, yet every word is worth a temple bell. I only scatter smoke, but he — he gives cool water to the thirsty.”

One morning at Satya Mandapa, Sambhrani cornered Dr. Chari himself.

“Ayya,” he said, “you heal bodies and minds. I heal boredom. Shouldn’t we both get the same fees?”

Dr. Chari smiled, sipping his coffee.

“Then you must also take the same responsibilities, Sambhrani.

Are you ready to be woken up at midnight when someone’s child has fever?”

“Ayyo!” Sambhrani clutched his chest. “If the village wakes me up at midnight, they’ll only get more stories. Fever will run away, yes… but from me, not the child!”

The Mandapa echoed with laughter. Even Dr. Chari chuckled, his eyes twinkling, before saying softly,

“Keep talking, Sambhrani. Laughter is medicine too.”

In that awe lies Sambhrani’s secret:

he heals others with humor, burns quietly within, and perfumes the world with laughter.

Ponmanipudi would not be Ponmanipudi without him.