Sunil Seth got out of the car. Standing on the road, the headmaster looked worried. At first the crowd watched patiently and seemed to sympathise with the student. They supported the underdog, the man with the smaller vehicle but, as Ashok’s voice grew louder, more confident, and he made wisecracks about the young man’s inability to ride, some people in the crowd started to support him.

‘Don’t try arguing with me while you play with yourself,’ said Ashok as he rubbed his belly.

‘S-such a stupid, buddhoo!’ the student stammered.

Sunil Seth went up to the student and gave him two hundred rupees. The student seemed happy and got on his scooter and rode away. With that the crowd dispersed.

‘We were lucky,’ said Sunil Seth. ‘In India winning an argument can be a matter of life and death.’

Ashok tried to start the Ambassador several times, but failed. They were about to abandon the car when it started.

‘Now I want to take you somewhere, Govinda. I want to teach you about responsibility. You would like to know about blessings and curses? I will show you.’

‘Where are we going, Dad?’

‘We will go to the leper colony,’ said Sunil Seth quietly.

‘I don’t want to go to the leper colony,’ Govinda protested. His father did not answer. He grabbed Govinda by the back of the shirt. ‘You will come.’

Govinda looked down as his eyes filled with tears.

They drove to the outskirts of Howrah where Calcutta begins to seep out into the eastern wetlands connecting with the Hooghly River. They crossed the bridge and made their way through the traffic congestion and pollution past the railway station. On Belilios Road they passed a number of engineering firms. Acrid smoke smelling of coal, car fumes, burning wood and cow dung rose in a haze over the old steel mills. They saw children waving at them, so Govinda waved back. They passed a slaughterhouse in a smoky, grimy, industrialised area with extensive sheet-metal works, foundries, cement plants and jute factories. The smell of blood, meat and bone from the abattoir was in the air. Vultures perched on tree-tops. One had its head tucked under its wing.

Ashok took a wrong turn and they found themselves amidst a herd of cows. The herd of skin and bone was being driven by a sweet-smiling Muslim boy to the abattoir. The boy helped them navigate back to the main road. Ashok pressed ahead and a little further, on the other side of a railway track, not far from the garbage dump, upon the banks of a muddy creek, was a scattering of huts: the leper colony. From the car Govinda saw an old man using a stainless steel spoon to stir a pot of boiling rice.