Yesterday morning, I awoke to the nasty sounds of loud retching outside my window. It was Dhani Ram, the man who cleans cars down our lane. “What happened?” I asked, after he’d

One afternoon, I had an urge to eat cluster beans (or guar phali as we call them in Hindi). I asked the local vegetable vendors, but they said they didn’t sell such desi vegetables.

Having lived in mofussil India most of my life, I’ve seen bribes big and small. From the pass karai fee that students in eastern UP’s village schools pay to move to

For those coming from west India, the pace of West Bengal can be excruciating. And if Kolkata is slow, mofussil towns or rural Bengal are something else. And in an environment where everything

Among some of the many communities that live on the banks of the river Ganges, people tell a curious story. Once upon a time, a long time ago, a princess was bathing in the Ganges. Frisking in the