Kolkata summer afternoons are for slumber: sweltering, sticky, dense. In the 1980s, when I was a child, I began to notice women on the street in starched crisp saris, carrying umbrellas, handkerchiefs and iced water bottles, walking with sweaty armpits, backs dabbed with talcum powder. Vegetable, fruit and flower sellers hoisted sheets of jute, marking them closed for the afternoon. We lived on Theatre Road, facing the planetarium, cathedral, three bus stops, the Victoria Memorial and the big Maidan (open field), where I witnessed thousands marching to the chant of “Inqalab, Zindabad!” — “Long live the revolution!”