Edible Rats

While my friends, more or less my age, would play flying kites, I would go bearing on my head palmyra fruits. I liked being of help to mother. But I liked to play a particular game, joining my friends - the game of catching rats in the fields.

During the rainy season, rats would get into the burrows in the sand-mound on the soutern side of the village. They were field-rats. They could be baked and eaten. We would all join together, cut the burrows and catch the rats inside.

- (From 'I Set My Heart On Victory', english translation of ஆசை வைத்தேன்', autobiography of Saravana Bhavan 'Annachi' Rajagopal)