India, Jan. 26 -- A n eight-year-old girl stood frozen at the community well, her hands gripping an empty bucket. Just ahead, water glinted in the depths, close enough to touch. Her aunt's grip on her shoulder was firm, "Wait. Let them fill their pots first." On the other side, women from a dominant caste household that owned the well approached, their glance menacing. The distance between the two groups of women - just a few feet, enforced by centuries - remained etched in the child's memory, a spatial grammar of bias and humiliation she would go on to spend her life decoding. Today, Shailaja Paik, is a certified genius. But the groundbreaking historian sometimes thinks she should draw that scene from her childhood. The two lines of women ...