Tripti Nagar’s Reviews > The Windfall > Status Update

They laughed with the slum children and pretended not to mind touching their filthy hands. Of course they didn’t mind. It would be easy to touch those children if you knew you were leaving and next week you would be back at home, drinking tea in your nice big kitchen telling people how those children laugh and smile even though their lives are so difficult.

Of course, more and more Americans were coming to India for holidays, but within a few months, once they had done yoga and tried halfheartedly to teach English to prostitutes’ children, they got on planes back to their homes in Michigan or Texas. Mrs. Jha saw these young white people in Connaught Place and Janpath with their Fabindia kurtas, looking like they were the latest Mother Teresa.

Maybe it hadn’t all been just a result of hard work and good luck; maybe it had been because of his wife’s prayers.

His India was neither rich nor poor. There were no huge homes and elaborate weddings, nor were there slums and water shortages and child laborers. The middle ground was too confusing to explain to an outsider. It was neither exotic enough nor familiar enough.