Part 1 Summary

Tara wakes before dawn to the sounds of the koel birds in the trees outside her family's home in Old Delhi. She arrived the night before, to visit her sister and brother in the home where they had all grown up. Once the sun has risen, Tara comes outside on the veranda and looks out into the garden, searching the purple bougainvillea trees for the birds that awoke her. Seeing her sister already in the garden, Tara runs to greet her, and the two walk along what they had referred to in childhood as "the rose walk," a strip of grass bordered by two long beds of roses.

Tara notices that, besides the trees in the garden, the other plants have been neglected and seemingly abandoned. She noted also that the rose walk remains almost as it was when they were children. Upon...