Notes on a Loveless Land

When the traffic light turnedred, kids would dart up. Peering into the auto-rickshaw, tapping at the cabwindow, they offered a dozen roses for a hundred rupees.“Okay, fifty... Thirty! Only thirty,Aunty!... Didi!”Some people said, the flowers areso cheap because they’ve been stolen from graveyards. Anyhow, it was possibleto buy cheap roses on the streets of Mumbai. At a roadside florists’