in the mid 90s in a dusty town on the Deccan plateau. I was five or six or seven (I can't really remember) and playing in the cool shade of my uncle's living room, vaguely aware of the blazing sun and hot earth just outside the large french windows that opened onto a still green lawn. My aunt was drowsy, cup of tea in hand, while my cousin and I ran around with the insufferable, misplaced enthusiasm of boyhood. While pausing for lemon sherbet, I looked onto the road past the lawn outside those french windows and saw our maid, Kusum bai walking by. I noticed she had her little son with her, three years old perhaps. And on his back, an old schoolbag of mine. The idyllic afternoon seemed to dissolve around me. I felt my mind and chest and limbs fill with rage, with righteous fury at this kid who had been given (I knew he could not have taken ) my schoolbag ! I rushed outside, eyes misty with anger and fell upon the little boy, wrestling the bag from him. I remember being ...