Stranger in My Own Land

It is my experience that when a mobile phone rings on a train, no one uses the greeting ‘Salaam’. Even if the caller uses the word, one cannot reply in kind. Not in a railway compartment. One makes do with a ‘Hello’. The conversation is kept short, monosyllables or even sounds: Hmmm or Haanh. ‘In the train now’, ‘Just leaving the station’ are the only full sentences one hears. For the rest, half-sentences do the work. It is as if both parties are discussing the spot marked X on an ancient treasure map.” This book is about silences and monosyllables. It is about experiencing a reality that some strenuously deny, but for others is as real as the pinch of a new shoe.