Hai india If you were born as I was, almost exactly three years after that momentous midnight of August

15, 1947, then your story reflects in some ways the story of India as a modern nation. This is the only
reason that this week I bring some of my own story into this column. My first memory of home is of a
tall, narrow house called Hasan Manzil in Karnal. It was allotted to my father’s family when they were
forced out of Pakistan. There was no running water and only one toilet of the kind that needed a manual
scavenger to come and clean it once a day, so the reek of that lavatory permeated every small room in
this old-fashioned haveli. It mingled with the stench of cow dung and the open drain that wafted up
from the bazaar below. This was my grandmother’s house.