Fights over goats, fights over cows

Fights over backyards,

Fights over sweeping, fights over gathering.

Fights over fields, fights over canals

Fights over levees, fights over fences

Fights all through the year.

– Chinnappa, a women born into the Upputanni lineage on common triggers for lineage conflicts

Two Upputanni lineage-mates disputed the boundary between their adjacent houses in 2006. Surendran contended that Mohan's fence infringed upon his plot. He had tolerated this infringement for several years. However, the escalating foul-mouthed public altercations between his female family members and Mohan's wife, Mala, were embarrassing. To demarcate precisely where the boundary between the two properties should be, he arranged for a land survey. Under the aegis of the village administration officer (VAO) and supervised by other Upputanni lineage-mates and several elders from the street, the surveyor began measuring the two plots and comparing them with the land registry records. He concluded that Surendran was right. Mohan was guilty of encroachment. Then, pandemonium erupted.

Mani, Mohan's youngest brother, lunged at Surendran, yelling, ‘No one is going to tear down the fence!’ Surendran retorted that nobody was asking them to do that. An unheeding Mani, however, started hitting Surendran. Surendran's brothers Sethu and Pazhani intervened. While everyone else was trying to separate the feuding lineage-mates, Mani grabbed Sethu's throat. As his head flopped to the side, Sethu's face turned blue. However, Mani would not relent. The Upputanni lineage-wives, who had been watching the proceedings from their own porches, ran onto the scene to stop their men. Mala, however, began throwing stones at them. Kavya, fearing that her husband, Sethu, might be strangled to death or, worse, suffer the humiliation of a woman striking him, rushed into the melee. As she was dislodging Mani off her husband, Mohan grabbed her hair, nearly tearing it out by the roots. Another lineage-mate, Govindasamy, forced Mohan to let go and dragged him away to the adjacent street. Thinking that Kavya was hitting his brother, Azhagu whacked her back repeatedly with a bamboo pole.