India, April 13 -- Dear Reader,

Summer isn't what it used to be. Sitting at my desk, with a list of jobs on the whiteboard before me, I miss the summer holidays of my youth, days when everything slowed to a stillness.

Days when we sprawl on our childhood beds with stacks of Enid Blytons. Above us the slow whir of the overhead ceiling fan. Then there is no fan at all - these are hours of 'load shedding' - we are in Jamshedpur where the Damodar Valley Corporation cuts electricity for four hours every day. In these power cuts of summer we fashion little fans from newspapers to cool ourselves down. In the soporific heat, books become even more of a refuge, transporting us to cooler climes, to the Famous Five on a boat to Kiran Island, to Cl...