ABSTRACT
My clothes clung to my body. I was bathed in sweat and a dullheadache formed as the overcrowded bus ground to a halt after a bumpy three-hour ride from Dumka along a road that was a necklace of potholes connected by strings of macadam. It was a cacophony of screams and shouts, with children crying as more passengers pushed into the bus, a converted Dodge truck, at Gopikandar, the block headquarters. Would I be able to survive the remaining few kilometres to Durgapur, I wondered, as a sack of rice fell on my shoulders.
