‘Sometimes the river is angry, and sometimes it is kind,’ said Sita. ‘We are part of the river,’ said the boy. ‘We cannot live without it.’ It was a good river, deep and strong, beginning in the mountains and ending in the sea. Along its banks, for hundreds of miles, lived millions of people, and Sita was only one small girl among them, and no one had ever heard of her, no one knew her—except for the old man, the boy and the river.
