tinai is a literary miscellany with emphasis on the relationship between organic and inorganic environment, persons and spirit beings. Each issue has no deadline and will surface only when it has something to communicate. It will lend a voice to humanities and make a case for an alternative social order.

The problems in society are many. But tinai will not pretend to address each of them. Literature can look at things as they are or dismantle reality with poetic licence. And rearrange with imagination the broken image to achieve aesthetic effects. In the literary universe, all things are beautiful -- even bird's droppings.

The reverence of beauty is good for society. For this, one needs leisure. The technology of today is the technology of speed and greed. It denies us leisure and deprives us of that harmonious equation with Mother Earth. tinai chooses to stay behind and keep company with the trees.

Nirmaldasan is the pen name of N. Watson Solomon, Senior Sub-Editor with The Hindu. He is also a Visiting Lecturer at the Madras Christian College and the Asian College of Journalism; and Editor of the Journalism Online newsletter (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/journalismonline). His collection of early poems titled An Eaglet In The Skies was published in 1996. Happily married to a Tamil scholar, Hebzibah Beulah Suganthi (awaiting the award of her Ph.D), he has a son, Andrew Veda (7), who is a chess player and Tamil poet.

Dr. Nirmal Selvamony is Reader at the Department of English, Madras Christian College, Tamilnadu. His interests include music, criticism and translation. Now he is engaged in the building up of an alternative social order. His wife, Dr. Ruckmani Nirmal (Reader in Pharmacology at Chengalpattu Medical College, Tamilnadu), is interested in holistic medicine. They have two daughters, Padini (15) and Madhini (8), who love books.