In rural India, the women paint the walls of their homes in one day and decorate it the next with whatever is handy, like shards of brick, charcoal and lime…

My cell phone is missing. It must have fallen from the special slot on the outside of my handbag…

Obviously she was a very focused person, doing one thing at a time, which I didn’t quite realize then. I must have been disturbing her rhythm. And she was too polite to say so.

Should I go to the bathroom now? No, the banana seller will come. He has promised to bring that special mountain variety today. I must not buy too many. Who is here to eat them?

To talk about Valentine’s Day would make them and me blush. And if I asked them about the ways in which they loved each other, I was sure I wasn’t going to get any coherent answers. Normal Indian style is to count loudly the ways in which your spouse irritates you…

They’ve done it. Got to the bus on time. Now they can go home and face the rest of the day in peace. And you can see that this is the best moment of the day from their faces.

We were the ‘ladies’ of an engineering college, though we hardy felt lady-like. We were a minority and treated on par with a particularly undistinguished, rather unlikable minority…