Mangalore, The Coastal Indian Town Where I

I Want To Read Keats And Wordsworth, Hemingway, George Orwell.

With Their Tinted Windows Up, The Cars Of The Rich Go Like Dark Eggs Down The Roads Of Delhi. Every Now And Then An Egg Will Crack Open A Woman's Hand, Dazzling With Gold Bangles, Stretches Out An Open Window, Flings An Empty Mineral Water Bottle Onto The Road And Then The Window Goes Up, And The Egg Is Resealed.

I Grew Up, As Many Indians Do, In An Archipelago Of Tongues. My Maternal Grandfather, Who Was A Surgeon In The City Of Madras, Was Fluent In At Least Four Languages And Used Each Of Them Daily.

I Had Grown Up In A Privileged, Upper-caste Hindu Community; And Because My Father Worked For A Catholic Hospital, We Lived In A Prosperous Christian Neighborhood.

You Can't Expect A Man In A Dung Heap To Smell Sweet.