Sagramanda, a Novel of Near-Future India

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There are the poor, and there are the terribly poor. Below them are the wretchedly poor. And then there are those who literally have nothing, not even hope. To them, the term is not even any longer applicable. That so many of these utterly forgotten manage to reach adulthood is itself amazing. To belong to this class of humanity is to view the alley as mansion, the street as home, and to live most if not all of one's miserable life in the gutter.

Taneer had once seen such a man, not much older than himself, walk quietly up to others, hand outstretched, one finger upraised. Not as an insult, but as a silent request. The man was asking for a single rupee. One rupee. About two American cents. Taneer had watched as the man stopped outside an eating place. Not a restaurant, really. A few rough wooden tables and chairs, not even a roof over the stall where the food was cooked in sizzling open skillets and pans. The man had stood there with his suppliant, petitioning, upraised finger until the exasperated proprietor had heaved a very large pot brimming with dirty dishwater square in the man's face. The patrons, most of whom were not a great deal better off than the beggar, had laughed heartily.

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