I had begun observing a quiet cheer in Kamla’s demeanour. Not that she was a sad person by nature but lately, she seemed a lot more affable. Her body-language was noticeably cheerier, and she hummed along as she dusted and swept our house. I had been morose lately, and seeing her everyday, in this happy avatar, certainly helped pass long days doing precious little. However, she was less efficient too. I wondered whether I should ask her if her husband’s brother, who lived with her, had finally turned over a new leaf, or that her younger child had been admitted to the English school she had aspired to. But why bother her with questions, I thought, and we carried on with our routine, albeit less miserably. Then it happened: she revealed to me that she had found, quite by accident, in her child’s school bag a queer looking contraption she…