Chapter 1. Our story begins with the beginning. A boy found a leaf on the ground near the park where he likes to run. With some effort, he picked it up and put it in a jar. With much effort, he waited and watched to see what would happen with that leaf. It started to wither away and die after a few days. He put in another leaf. Nothing happened with that leaf. Another leaf was placed in the jar. It too started to wither away and die. So did the other leaves. The only thing in the jar was the dead leaf. It was summer. The trees were laden with green leaves. It was hot. The boy felt it necessary to cool himself down. He took his jacket and tied it round his face to protect his eyes. He ran, the jacket covering his head. He was alone. At a certain distance, he pulled it off his head. The sky was clear and blue. For a while, he forgot to look up. He kept his eyes straight and looked at the ground. A minute passed. Then he picked up the piece of paper from the ground. He looked up again. The sky had turned black. I too have seen a clear blue sky, but I am always careful when I look up. It is not advisable to do so without a head covering in India. If one is caught in the open without a head covering, one has to run away as fast as possible. I don’t know where this habit of the young boy of running with his jacket tied to his head came from. I have seen other men and women doing it. I have seen several people running on the road without covering their heads. One can see quite a few things in such a state. I even have seen a female wearing only the lower part of her saree, exposing her legs. But I have never seen someone with their head covered, or a running man or woman without any clothes on. I never thought this is a bad idea. But it is not advisable. I am told that someone who does so would be exposed to the view of others. Well, we are human and this was done not in India. After walking around the park for a long time, I had a talk with the gatekeeper of the park. I asked about the young boy who had been seen with a piece of paper in his hands running around the park in the last two days. The gatekeeper was a man in his late 60s, who used to sit by the side of the path and watch the trees. He told me that the man was the son of a rich family. He added that the man used to run often. I wanted to know about the piece of paper. He told me that it was a notice about the school where the man had gone to and had sent for the board. The young boy had asked his father for money to send him to the school, but the father was unable to provide the money. When the boy found out that his son would not be admitted to the school as the fee was high, he decided to get the notice published. I would like to tell you something about the rich family. They belonged to a poor village in the state of Bihar. Chapter 2. I started making enquiries when I was told that the boy’s father was a drunkard, and had died because of the drinking habit of the man. When I got some time, I went to see the man. His house was not far from the park. The street in front of it was covered with dirt and rubbish. It was a two-storey house. At the top of the house was the roof, like a terrace. There were some plants growing in the terrace. They looked dark green because of the lack of sunlight. The house was close to the road and I did not have to go down a passageway. I did not get the answer to a question I wanted to ask when I saw the gate of the house. It was closed. There was a sign-board near it that was written in Hindi, but I could not make out the message. I knew Hindi. But I thought it was not proper to go into someone’s house without permission, not knowing what I would find inside. A man came up to me and told me that the woman of the house was coming home. I was told to wait on the road. The gate was not locked. There were no bars in front of it. The woman came out of the house just as I had gone and sat down on the steps of the porch. The gate was not padlocked and it was open. I could see the gate from where I was sitting. The woman I met was middle-aged. She had black teeth and was smoking. She had a big belly. It was full of fat. She was wearing a dark blue saree. The colour did not look good with her complexion. It looked dirty. She had long braids tied in a bun on top of her head. They were shining like black threads. It looked like some sort of artificial threads had been tied to the head. The woman was short in height. She looked very tired and depressed. A strong smell of alcohol came from the woman’s nose. She told me that she was alone in the house. She had no sons and daughters. The sons and daughters of the house were no more. She added that her husband had died of a disease. I told her that I could not bear the smell of alcohol. Chapter 3. I was sitting on the steps. She looked at me with fear. She had black circles under her eyes. Her eyes were wide open. She said that her children had died because of the drinking habit of her husband. It was her husband who was on the top floor of the house. The roof of the terrace was for their cattle. She was selling the cattle. The woman could not go up the steps. There was no one with her in the house. She was saying this to me as I stood and tried to lift her up, so she could go upstairs to the veranda. She could not even walk without my help. She was so fat. I told her that she could go home with me. I was not going to visit the man in the house, only to give her a lift. But she did not go home with me. She told me that the man in the house was not a drunkard. She had brought him into the world. She said she could not make sense of the word “father”. I offered to help her. She could not walk. I lifted her up and placed her on my back. Then I placed my right hand on her waist and the left hand on her shoulder. I carried her in this position for some distance. She could not walk like this. She asked me to place her down. I put her down and told her to walk. But she told me that she was not able to walk. I lifted her up again and walked. She asked me to carry her. Again I lifted her up. She was too heavy for me. The woman was feeling helpless. She was in that state and she was not able to do anything. She asked me to carry her to the road. I lifted her up to the gate. But I did not want to carry her any further. So I sat down and placed her on the ground. The woman sat down beside me and told me to come home with her. She asked me whether I had come for a specific reason. I told her that I had gone to the park to take a look at the trees. The woman told me that I was lying. She said that it was a lie that she was alone in the house. She had a son who was studying in the town. She also had daughters. But she was trying to sell the cows because the man on the top floor was a drunkard. She told me that they did not get any rent from the cows. The cows were eating away all the grass in the farm. She told me that she had brought the man to her house. He was not an addict when she took him into the house. She tried to get him married. But he did not come to her house to stay. He was living with his widowed mother and sister. He used to visit his mother often, but never went to his sister. His mother was very sad because the man was not coming to see her. The man lived on the top floor of the house, and could not enter the house after drinking. His mother could not come to the top floor to see him. The woman told me that she was now working and going to her place of work every day. When the man is alone, she used to talk with him and bring him back from the state of intoxication. She was not able to talk to him in the day. He used to get drunk and become unconscious in the day. She said she could not even think of the life of her son. Chapter 4. She was telling me this, when a man came down the road. He looked a man of forty. He had lost his hair on top and had grown a thick black beard. He was well dressed. It was odd that a man with a beard was in the field with a big belly. His wife was carrying a big calabash on her head. She was coming to see her mother. I gave a sigh and told the woman that I had to leave. The man was going to his mother’s place. I had to go to the woman’s mother’s place. The woman took the woman’s purse from the waist of the woman. I