Across the baggage claim aisles my mother called my name. There they were. Mummy and Papa. I was groggy from the long flight and smelled bad. My skin was dry. I should, I thought, have brushed my teeth before coming through customs. My father with his silver goatee and rimless specs. My mother in an organza sari of pale pink, her hair oiled into a bun with such precision it was as though her scalp was painted. At the edge of her waving hand a neat steel wristwatch. I saw it in her face: she wanted to run to me, but I was the child, and the parent does not run to the child. There is a way
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