“Yes, also Hebrew, for sure, betakh. So Mama, with all that under her belt, do you think we would waste such talent setting her to baking bloody matzahs all day? Of course not! Your daughter will be a teacher in Dharavi—a beloved, respected teacher of women and girls of all ages. She will teach English, computer skills, maybe another subject or two. After she’s oriented, with her superior language gifts, she can also fill in sometimes for Sita or one of the other girls as an apprentice tour guide. You know, our tour business is very successful, Mama, one of our biggest moneymakers—slums by day, the red-light district and Falkland Road with the merchandise on display in cages by night, a huge tourist attraction—the Lonely Planet kids love it, it’s a must-see, a tremendous draw, awesome. But of course, for such a respectable girl like your Maya, we would only put her on the slum tour detail, no trolling by night, no cages, don’t worry your head about it for one minute.”

Slum tours. It had been a proposal that had crossed my desk in connection with my own business, I now recalled, but I had quickly rejected it as prurient, disgusting, and above all too confusing for my clientele in their designer traveling gear seeking their spiritual center in accordance with their idea of India. Who would want to go on a tour of a slum anyway, with its filth and disease, its sick cows and goats, its squealing copulating rats and squealing defecating children squatting in the mud, its full-frontal exposure of every revolting insult life dishes out, from birth to death? Only mental cases, people with a screw loose, voyeurs, masochists, perverts, only nutjobs would want to slosh through the open cesspools, subject themselves to such an ordeal—it was a sick idea, obscene.

I could have gone on in this vein, but you stepped into the room in your jeans and orange T-shirt taking our breath away, the three of us earthbound there at that table were overcome as if struck by a vision. On top of everything else, she’s also gorgeous—I could read that in their eyes.

As you were pulling on your knee-high rubbers and poncho, arming yourself to go out and face the elements, Sammy went on. “It’s our hottest ticket, the slum tour. You should try it, mama, it’s not only for the backpackers. We’re always full up, first come, first served, always turning people away, but if you SMS me, I’ll jump you in the queue as a special favor for our friends. It’s very illuminating.”

Yes, I’ll register myself for this abomination right away, I decided the minute you left, no matter how distasteful I considered the whole idea morally and aesthetically. I would do it for you, Maya. It would be a way to get closer to you, to bond, mother and daughter.