Tara looked at the sinewy porter in his dirty white dhoti, sweat gleaming off his bare chest. A red-faced Britisher wearing a completely impractical shirt and tie stepped up to him and began animatedly pointing at his luggage as he removed some silver paisee from his pocket. The coolie looked down at the coins in the man’s hands and simply shook his head no. The man pulled at his too-tight collar and pointed a meaty finger in the coolie’s face and began screaming at him. “You filthy ingrate! You think you’re worth more than this?” He shoved his open palm in the coolie’s face. Tara strained her neck to peek at the money—anyone would be insulted at such a paltry sum.

Tara knew the coolie wasn’t going to budge because he had already been paid to watch their trunks, but she appreciated his stony expression and stalwart refusal. The man looked like he was going to spit on the coolie, but rather hurried away to the next porter, who also refused him. Tara caught the coolie’s eye and gave him a little nod. She made a note to give him an extra-large tip.

She glanced at her nanni, who had taken in the entire scene as well and was smiling. There was little her nanni detested more than British superiority. She turned her smile now on Tara. “You are quite wise for someone so young. You’re certainly much smarter than that older brother of yours.”

Tara laughed as she retied the ribbon at the end of her long braid. “Nanni! You’re not supposed to play favorites.”

“Nonsense, child. Parents are not supposed to play favorites. Grandparents, on the other hand, can do as they please. It is the privilege of old age. Now I’m going to check on our through tickets to Shimla. You stay here and make sure they put the luggage in the right berth.”

Tara nodded to her nanni as she shuffled off to a ticket window. The coolie handling their trunks had stepped away for a moment, so Tara took a seat on the wooden bench behind her, pulled her book from the red cotton satchel she’d sewn from an old, worn sari, and began reading.

“What are you reading?”

Tara looked up at a ruddy-faced young soldier rudely blocking her sun and raised an eyebrow. She pulled her book to her chest. When she didn’t respond, he tried again.

“Thum kya par-rahen hein?” When the soldier spoke Urdu his vowels were too soft and he seemed to lose his rs in the back of his mouth somewhere.

Tara grimaced. “Aap.”

The soldier looked at Tara and shrugged.

“You don’t know me, so you need to say ‘aap,’” she explained in her perfect English. “The formal, not the familiar.”

The soldier looked properly chastised, so Tara relaxed her clenched jaw.

“Sorry. I guess your English is much better than my Urdu,” he said.