New Delhi, Nov. 12 -- Indu said there is no forgiveness, referring to herself and then to the rest of us. Fifty years after growing up around those places, she was back. About two and half hours' drive from the airport where we landed, we stopped at a viewing point, which could have been made only by someone with a sense of the grotesque.

It was a panoramic view of a deep gash on the earth-two thousand feet deep and a few kilometres both in width and length. Dust suspended permanently in the air from the digging that was continuing at the bottom by massive earthmovers and excavators, all of which looked like ants from our height and distance.

Thirty minutes further, we had to leave our cars. Only bikes could go on that path off the road...