Someone’s remembered the living.
Alif turns a corner and sees sliced bread soaked with milk laid out in earthenware platters.
Sleek crows swoop down for the offerings, lifting the sodden pieces jerkily as if unsure of their
marvellous luck, flapping back when a stray dog comes to lick at the sop, while large red ants march
in file, working on the sticky splashes that dot the pavement. The sight of these bowls of food put out
under the last summer blossoms of a gulmohar tree for any creature in need makes Alif feel he has
been transported to some earlier, reputedly more enlightened, stage of civilisation.
His ruminations are interrupted by a message from his wife.
U hd promise to cum home erly. Dont eat too much and dont forget.
She speaks in Hindustani but writes always in this impatiently compressed English.
All right Tahi, Alif replies.
U hv to help me with my asgment on sales strategising, rmber?
He has forgotten, if he ever knew, what this is all about but makes, as…