Because of my Seventies experience, though, I have found myself approaching the second coming of the subcontinent with some suspicion, even a puzzling sense of shame. Nothing about the hype surrounding The God of Small Things eased my misgivings. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees. Red bananas ripen.
Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air.
Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun. Pepper vines snake up electric poles. Wild creepers burst through laterite banks and spill across flooded roads. Boats ply in the bazaars. And small fish appear in the puddles that fill the PWD potholes on the highways.