Ba slipped the gold bangles from my wrists. The gold ones were plain so I didn't mind taking them off, but I loved wearing my milk-glass bangles and the lakkh bracelets.
"A widow can't wear bangles," she said. "They are signs of a woman's good fortune. When your husband dies it's over."
"What if my good fortune comes back?"
"It doesn't."
Pretty as a peacock, twelve-year-old Leela had been spoiled all her life. She doesn't care for school and barely marks the growing unrest between the British colonists and her own countrymen. Why should she? Her future has...