When I was little, no more than 5 or 6, we went to visit a cousin of my grandpa, a grey old man with rheumy eyes and red stained teeth. He smelled of betel nut and decay Our occasional nanny, a woman whose chappals exposed her cracked heels, whose skintight churidars were worn under a loose fitting kurta, knelt before Grandpa Maharaj and touched his feet. Her coal black hair coiled into an oily knot at the back of her head, rubbed against his knees as he bent down to pat her greased head.You have to understand that having my mother’s surname - Maharaj – is like having the surname Kennedy in America, or Gandhi in India. It’s a name that demands respect – which was what my childhood nanny was doing, kowtowing to this ancient man in the hope of receiving a blessing and a promise of good fortune in exchange.I was more alarmed than astonished and hid behind my mother’s skirt, afraid that I, too, would have to touch the old man’s gnarled toes that peeped out of a pair of Jesus sandals. I...
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