“You smell like smoke,” my mother said to me. So I rubbed an oval of soap in my hair and poured a whole bucket of water on myself before a...

“You smell like smoke,” my mother said to me.
So I rubbed an oval of soap in my hair and poured a whole bucket of water on myself before a neighbour complained that I was wasting the morning supply.
There was a curfew that day. On the main street, a police jeep would creep by every half hour. Daily-wage labourers, compelled to work, would come home with arms raised to show they had no weapons.
In bed, my wet hair spread on the pillow, I picked up my new phone – purchased with my own salary, screen guard still attached.
On Facebook, there was only one conversation.
These terrorists attacked the wrong neighbourhood #KolabaganTrainAttack #Undefeated
Friends, if you have fifty rupees, skip your samosas today and donate to –
The more I scrolled, the more Facebook unrolled.
This news clip exclusively from 24 Hours shows how –
Candlelight vigil at –
The night before, I had been at the railway station, no more than a fifteen-minute walk from my house. I ought to have seen the men who stole up to the open windows and threw flaming torches into the halted train. But all I saw were carriages, burning, their doors locked from the outside and dangerously hot. The fire spread to huts bordering the station, smoke filling the...