Old. A viable die-able age.

In India, the poverty is so vast that the state cannot control it. It can beat people, but it can't prevent the poor from flooding the roads, the cities, the parks and railway station platforms.

Excitement always leads to tears.

Just a few years ago India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were one country. Actually, we were many countries if you count the princely states.... Then the British drew a line, and now we're three countries, two of them pointing nukes at each other - the radical Hindu bomb and the radical Muslim bomb.

Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century.

Smells, like music, hold memories. She breathed deep, and bottled it up for posterity.

Anyway, now she thinks of Estha and Rahel as Them, because, separately, the two of them are no longer what They were or ever thought They would be. Ever. Their lives have a size and a shape now. Estha has his and Rahel hers. Edges, Borders, Boundaries, Brinks and Limits have appeared like a team of trolls on their separate horizons. Short creatures with long shadows, patrolling the Blurry End. Gentle half-moons have gathered under their eyes and they are as old as Ammu was when she died.