All I can tell you about Tiwari's mother's family is that her last surviving son came to Mumbai and died as a watchman in my building. Everything else is hearsay. Once, during the three months that she stayed in our house at Lokhandwala Complex, Andheri West, she addressed me, but I could not understand her Madhya Pradesh dialect. After some minutes, she broke down sobbing. I stood there, like a hare pinned in a floodlight.

You have to picture a face out of an Anjolie Ela Menon painting, gaunt, with a steady gaze haunted by an ineffable dignity. You might be reminded of cats, full of secrets and tragedy and yet perfectly poised in any weather. She slept on a thin cotton cloth spread out a bare, cold mosaic floor, didn't seem to need anything more.