The other night I had a dream about my grandmother's house in Tattamangalam, a small town in the Indian state of Kerala, right at the tip of the subcontinent. My father grew up there, and we still have hundreds of relatives in the region. I have been to India three times in the last five years, and built an extensive family tree. You can download one of the nine panels here. This one shows part of my grandmother's side of the family only and is a little old: my apologies to Corrie and Michael, who are now married to Matthew and Jenni respectively. (My name is number 719.)

Kerala is one of the world's breadbaskets. Rice paddies filled with water and bounded by lines of coconut trees stretch from horizon to horizon. Every morning at sunrise fresh milk and vegetables are carted into town. Every evening at dusk, lights are lit to the Hindu deities at temples large and small, which dot the landscape and inhabit every home.

If you use Google Earth you can see just how drenched with water this major farming area is, by downloading and launching this placemark. My grandmother's home is one of the blurry houses near the centre of the screen. The abundance of water was also a major attraction for Coca-Cola, who opened a bottling factory in the area, and this is one of the places where the water table was dropping because it was being mixed with sugar and bottled for sale.

My dream went as many dreams go, sometimes clear and sometimes not. In the dream, my brother and sister were children, like we were when we travelled there as a family 25 years ago. I was off doing something next door when I heard Matthew calling from the front yard that someone had arrived at the gate. I looked out the window and watched as a man wearing a grey suit and a red, black and green hat greeted my grandmother and then sat down at a table in the yard. Apparently, there had just been an election and he was visiting his constituents in the area.

You see, he was the village's new member of parliament. From Hamas.