Introduction

Inder was six. Almost seven. His birthday was a month away. He was short for his age, dark brown hair, black eyes. He was a bibliophile, forever lost in fantasies about those wizards. He had an active imagination. He wanted to grow up.

Lavanya was seventeen. She was finishing school this year. Sinuous jet black hair and a svelte figure to match. Her mother's beatific face. A natural charm which caught every stranger's stare. She wanted to be run away from here and become a writer.

Rajesh was the eldest one. He was twenty three. He lived abroad. He was a software engineer. He sent money home every month like a responsible son. He did not like the foreigners. He wanted to come back and become an artist.

Their father was a hard working blue-collared employee of a large soap manufacturing company. He left for work at 6 am and returned at 10 pm. He had become a widower five years ago. He wanted to meet his wife again, one way or the other.

The children were mostly under the care of Dadima, the maternal grandmother. She was seventy and wore a white saree. She was always chewing paan and looking at the golden fields of barley and corn. She wanted the pain in her back to go away so that she could run across the fields one more time.

It was one dark early morning that Rosa entered their lives. Rosa and her revolutionary ways. Rosa and her new fangled ideas. Rosa and her black ribbon.