My father was a cobbler. We belonged to the leather workers caste. In our village, people went barefoot and rarely bought new shoes. Shoes were worn by the well to do families. Our house was a shack with a tiled roof. On the way back from school, I would eagerly look for smoke rising. That would mean mother was cooking and a hot meal of rice and fish was for lunch. Often there was no smoke; which meant that we would make do with stale pao - if we were lucky. Read more