By late afternoon, he was in a well-guarded marketplace where traders were selling rice and pulses at exorbitant rates. There was also traditional medicine, dried fish, meat, preserved eggs and vegetables, and above all, human beings.

It was a slave market and it was full of starving people who had come to sell their own offspring. Ho Han’s father went to sit beside them. Pulling out the sacks that lined the baskets, he spread them in front. He placed the children on the sacks and went out to buy food. He brought back rice, water and five preserved eggs. Forcing the children to sit up, he first fed them, then ate a meal of rice and eggs.

There was a roar from the people who had come to buy the children. They were feeling, pressing and rubbing the merchandise on display with their hands. Having finished eating, Ho Han’s father waited eagerly for customers.

The first to be sold was the youngest child. He was bought by a wealthy farmer. The oldest brother was next to go, to a fish merchant. The third brother was sold to a landlord. Ho Han looked on with tear-filled eyes, as one by one all his playmates left. There was nothing to say or do.

The sun was slowly setting. The marketplace began to empty. Ho Han, now somewhat revived by the food, lay on the sack again. Glancing at his father in fear, he cajoled him, ‘Take me home. I can walk back. You won’t have to carry me.’

The father did not answer. He sat there, staring ahead with blank eyes.

A long time passed. His patience was wearing thin and he was contemplating going back. At that moment a man with a frightening face appeared before him. Clad in dirty silk clothes and wearing a shabby pigtail, the man touched Ho Han with a rough hand. Taking out a pouch from his pocket, he enquired in a harsh tone, ‘How many silvers?’

*

With a deep sigh Lailin raised her head from Arunabh’s book. The lovely smell of her mother’s cooking came wafting out of the kitchen. She knew that tonight there would be Assamese food on the table. It would most likely be daal, rice, greens and a sour curry cooked with fish and tomatoes. Whether she liked it or not, she would have to eat it or else her mother would be upset. She hated hurting her mother in any way. Her mother sometimes cooked Assamese food, trying to remember recipes from her past. Lailin had no idea, whether or not it was authentic, but her mother would insist, ‘This is our own food. Our very own style of cooking. We must never forget our traditions.’

Lailin had heard her mother talk like this ever since she could remember. In the beginning it didn’t mean anything to her. But now it did. She could hardly bear it. It triggered an explosion in her head. As she gradually learnt about her past, she protested against such talk. She would lose her temper and shout at her mother, ‘This is not our food. I won’t eat this. Why do you try to make me Assamese? I don’t consider myself Assamese. I am Chinese. And these are not our traditions. After all that has happened, how can you love that country and its people? What kind of a person are you, Maa?’