English-medium (p. 19): Private school, teaching all its lessons in English. Different from, and more expensive than, the state government schools teaching in Bengali.

Bharat Sevashram Sangha (p. 20): A Hindu charitable nongovernmental organization in India. Founded in 1917, provides shelter, food, medical treatment and public safety services to pilgrims at various places of worship and religious fairs.

Saloon (p. 21): In West Bengal, a barbershop.

Nuliya (p. 21): Fisherman, also expert swimmers and divers who function as swimming guides and lifeguards for the tourists in Odisha, especially at the beaches of Puri which is both a pilgrimage site for Hindus and a very popular holiday spot.

Amrik Singh Arora (p. 22): Singer of modern, folk, and devotional Bengali songs, who began his career in the late 1960s at Kolkata’s famous Blue Fox restaurant.

Dol (p. 23): Spring festival commemorating Krishna and Radha on their swing of love, marking the day when Krishna smeared Radha’s face with color. The word dol means “swing.”

Old Ganga (p. 25): The Adi Ganga, also known as Gobindapur Creek, Surman’s Nullah, and Tolly’s Nullah, was the main branch of the Hooghly River from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century but has since virtually dried up. Located immediately behind the Keoratala Crematorium in South Calcutta, it is frequently used by mourners to immerse the ashes of their dead.

Ashtami (p. 25): The Eighth Day of the Durga Puja celebrations in West Bengal. The ninth is Nabami and the tenth, Dashami, the names arising from the Bengali words for “eighth,” “ninth,” etc.

Jaya (p. 25): Another name for the goddess Durga. Hence the use of the word divine in the letter which Khororobi writes to her.

Rabba! Rabba! (p. 29): An exclamation in Punjabi, equiavalent to “Lord! Lord!”

Vishwakarma Puja (p. 30): A day of celebration for Vishwakarma, a Hindu god, considered to be the divine architect. In many parts of Eastern India, especially West Bengal, the holiday is an occasion to fly kites.

Manja (p. 31): Special string for “fighter” kites, prepared by gumming, coloring, and coating with powdered glass.

Boudi (p. 36): Bou in Bengali means both bride and wife. Di is a shortened form of “didi,” meaning older sister. Together, it is a term of endearment, and respectful address, for the woman married to one’s older brother, and for a married woman by any younger person, in and outside the family.

Morning Will Come Again (p. 32): Phir Subah Hogi (1958), Indian film produced and directed by Ramesh Saigal, starring Raj Kapoor and Mala Sinha: an adaption of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

with money saved up from his tuitions (p. 40): Older, college-going students often provide tutoring to younger school-going boys and girls as a way of earning some pocket money.

“Countless revolutionary martyrs have laid down their lives …” (p. 40): From Mao Zedong, On Coalition Government.

November 19, 1970 was the night of the bloody Barasat killings (p. 41): “Eleven Naxalites were shot dead and their bullet-ridden bodies thrown along a highway in the Barasat area … Bullets of service revolvers found in the bodies of the youths in the Barasat area, and other reports published … as to how they were rounded up in the Maidan area while holding a secret meeting, left hardly anybody in doubt as to the ‘mystery’ of the massacre.”—T. Goswami, cited in Dilip Hiro, Inside India Today (London: Routledge, 1976).