ABSTRACT
About a year ago, when Tara and Rajeev moved in across the street from the author, the author was ecstatic. The author envisioned walking up to their front door, empty bowl in hand, laughing apologetically because he/she had allowed myself to run out of sugar, and asking if the author could please borrow some. And the author thought Tara would run to their house some morning because she was out of milk for tea or bread for breakfast. When the author did go over one morning to borrow sugar, Tara stood at the door, meticulously dressed in a burgundy suit, two slender lace ruffles flaring out from under the sleeves of her jacket. On the wall behind her hung two large paintings, one, a market scene in an Indian village, people milling around stalls of fruit and vegetables; the other, a festival parade, heat and dust rising around the decorated elephants.
