KANYAKUMARI, DECEMBER 25 “Ee kaa hai (what is this)?’’ asks Babu Lal Soni of Jharkhand curiously, peering between the thatch covering of a 16-ft high steel statue of two giant hands, one holding back the waves, another cupped to cradle a lamp of hope. ‘‘Arre, likha hain Angreji mein (it’s written here in English), t-s-u-n-a-m-i. Tsunami!’’ exclaims buddy Khursheed Alam of Lucknow. ‘‘Yaad hain naa? Bahut pani aaya tha yahan (Remember it? A lot of water had come here).’’ Satisfied, the excavator operators, on a break from expanding National Highway 7, turn away.

Over six hours this afternoon, they are two of a handful visitors—of thousands on this windswept Christmas day—to show an interest in the tsunami memorial frantically being completed at the subcontinent’s tri-sea junction to honour the 12,500 Indians who perished under the power of the great Asian tsunami.

Yet when Tamil Nadu’s imperious Chief Minister inaugurates a rebuilt bridge in the fishing harbour of Colachel tomorrow 18 km to the north and sends a Cabinet colleague to lift the veil off the tsunami memorial, she will mainly hope to reflect the symbolism of honouring the state’s 8,000 dead in one of India’s holiest districts, where 840 perished along a 20-km stretch of coast.

But Tamil Nadu’s rulers will not notice the irony of post-tsunami Kanyakumari, a town once called ‘Alexandria of the East’, a place where all things ancient and modern, the country’s great outward leap, its growing wanderlust, its high-rev economic engine—and its ability to swiftly mask epic tragedy—coalesce on one day.

Collector Sunil Paliwal, a 37-year-old computer science engineer from IIT Kanpur and the University of Maryland, is striving to squelch murmurs of communal tensions muffled thus far by the tragedy and to find land for more tsunami-victim houses in Tamil Nadu’s most densely packed and most literate district.

There is Sivanandan R, owner of one of the many everything-for-Rs-5 shop. ‘‘In America they have dollar shop,’’ he explains. ‘‘Now with China goods, we can also offer.’’ For Rs 5, you can get melmoware plates, or a plastic copy of the Indian Army’s 5.56 mm INSAS rifle, or a plastic stegosaur on wheels. The tsunami anniversary? ‘‘More visitors.’’

There is school dropout Sarvesh Kumar and illiterate Ali Khan, cheerful young UP migrants who wandered here seven months ago via Kerala and run a shabby cart called ‘Lakhnow Best Rajsee ice cream mix’. They love Kanykakumari for its ‘‘cleanliness’’, hate its ‘‘fat rice’’ and send Rs 5,000 home to their wheat-farming families. They know of the tsunami anniversary. ‘‘We must remember, some people died,’’ says Khan.

There is busy Paul Raj, who will speak to you in Hindi, English, Marathi, Telugu, Malayalam or Tamil—as long as you get your photo taken on Siva the horse (an elephant just walked in as competition). ‘‘Every day, more people from more states,’’ he mumbles. He was here when the tsunami came.

There is sweeper B Selvi, one of many continually sweeping up the ice-cream tops, chocolate boxes, banana skins. Very little plastic though. There’s a ban, and it largely seems to work. There are no bins. She stops for a Re 1 coffee and wipes her brow. ‘‘It’s never ending,’’ she sighs. ‘‘Look at it. To them it’s all trash can.’’

To absorb India’s contradictions—or, if you will, its ability to let millennia and diversity coexist—stand now at the tip of the subcontinent, facing the tsunami memorial. On the eastern horizon are the spinning blades of a 50-mill windfarm; closer in the three spires of Our Lady of Ransom church, its 153-ft central tower crowned with a cross of gold. To the west, is a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, its design from Orissa, the skylight designed such that sun’s rays on October 2 fall at the very spot where his ashes lay before they were cast to the confluence.

Behind the memorial is the ancient temple of the virgin goddess Kanyakumari Amman. The thousands swell as the sunset begins. The hordes of bearded, black-clad Sabrimala devotees have dried off from their dip in the confluence and join the great Indian middle class and the Bermuda-clad tourists from abroad.

In the km-long parking lot, the car registrations range from Karnataka, Andhra, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, even three Scorpios from Rajasthan carrying an extended over-60s Marwari family. They are tired. Three weeks on the road. And no, they don’t know. What tsunami anniversary?

Two men silently assess you and choose a Hindi pamphlet. They are from the Gospel Epistle Mission, Periavilai, Kanyakumari. They are from the ‘‘Jehovah Shalom’’ run by Y P Devadhas, clearly an evangelist. No, they will not speak.