No time for stories this morning. Nagarajan has left early as usual, at first light. He is a rat-catcher, like his father before him. He works in the Jatts’ fields. It’s an age-old tradition, a skill that is handed down, an inheritance of sorts: the art of catching rats with your bare hands. The rodents eat the crops and damage the soil with their tunnels. Nagarajan has learned to recognize the tiny, distinctive holes in the ground. You must be attentive, his father told him. And patient. Don’t be afraid. You’ll get bitten at first. You’ll learn. He remembers his first catch, when he was eight years old, when he put his hand down the hole. A sharp pain tore through his flesh, like lightning: the rat had bitten the tender space between the thumb and forefinger, where the skin is soft and sensitive. Nagarajan had cried out, and pulled his bloodstained hand free. His father had laughed. You’re going about it the wrong way. You have to be quicker than that, take him by surprise. Try again. Nagarajan was frightened. He fought back his tears. Try again! He had tried again, six times, six bites, before pulling the huge rat from its hiding place. His father had grasped the animal by its tail and smashed its head against a stone, before handing it back to his son. There, he said, simply. Nagarajan had taken hold of the dead rat and carried it back home, like a trophy.

First, his mother had dressed his hand. Then she roasted the rat on the fire, and they had eaten it together for dinner.

Dalits like Nagarajan earn no wages, they are merely allowed to keep what they catch. A privilege, of a kind: the rats are the property of the Jatts, like the fields and whatever is in them or lies beneath them. It’s not bad, grilled. Some say it tastes a little like chicken. The poor man’s chicken. The Dalits’ chicken. The only meat they have. Nagarajan tells how his father ate rats whole, with their skin and fur, leaving only the indigestible tail. He would skewer the animal on a stick, grill it over the fire then crunch it whole. Lalita laughs whenever she hears the story. Smita prefers to skin the rats first. In the evening, they eat that day’s rats with rice, from which Smita keeps the cooking water, to use as a sauce. Sometimes, the families whose latrines she empties also give her their leftovers. She brings them home and shares them with the neighbours.

Your bindi.

Don’t forget.