Chapter 3 — Childhood
The summer of 1953 we lived in a single room behind my father's tailoring shop in Jullundur. Four of us, two beds, one kerosene lamp. My mother would wake before light and roll the morning parathas on a tin trunk we used as a table. The street smelled of cardamom and damp newsprint, and on Sundays — only Sundays — of butter.
I was the youngest. Whatever my brothers did, I did half an hour later, badly, and with great pride. I remember climbing the neem tree behind the gurdwara and being too frightened to come down. My brother Surjit climbed up to fetch me. He didn't say anything, just sat on the branch beside me until I was ready. That is the kind of brother he was. I miss him every morning.
