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It was a happy afternoon

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 surprised by how easy it was to take it, he was so small. He burst into tears, his wailing shattered the hot silence of the summer streets. He did not even know me, it must have been terrifying. Kusum bai was taken aback but did not say anything, and with a slightly hurt look on her face she took her son and walked away. 

Triumphant, I brought the bag back to my cousin and aunt who did not bother to scold me. 

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