Then after a sip, she said, “Do you really think that Basanti works so silently because she loves to? Could you really believe that her cheek was swollen due to slipping?“ She was looking straight into my eyes, piercingly.

She didn’t remain a six year old all her life. She grew. She understood how gambling and betting could ruin an otherwise normal family.

One of those stunts had led to them being late to school, and the four of them – her sister, their two friends and she – had been made to kneel outside the principal’s office with their hands raised for two hours straight.

"Those are my mementos, my reminders of this beautiful time, and I don’t want to lose a single one of those," says this young mother of her baby's things.

The memories of a summer vacation in my aunt's home near Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh still tug at my heart with the scent of lemon rice that I remember.