Excerpt from A Murderous Awakening

Rachel and Sundar arrived as the sun was slowly emerging through a misty dawn, gradually adding artist’s touches of colour to paddy fields and palm trees.  The village was rousing, a sedated creature coming slowly to consciousness.  In the drowsy confusion of daybreak, pans clattered and the smell of burning wood filled the air, as young women sleepily prepared breakfast.  Soon, both they and the men would go to work in the fields. 

Akhil, the village head-man who was helping with Rachel’s research, presented them with chai which the women had prepared.  Having travelled through the night to get there, the scalding, sweet drink was always welcome.  As she sipped the tea and spoke to the gathering of children with the help of Sundar’s translation, Rachel glanced across at the elderly women seated in their usual position at their porches.  They were perched like a line of crows on a telephone wire as they waited for the young women to bring their breakfast.  Their keen eyes wandered over the village, their voices cackling to each other loudly in Telugu, checking that nothing was amiss after the night’s slumber.  In India, the loss of awareness during sleep means heightened vulnerability to dangers like tigers, scorpions, king cobras and spiders.  As a foreigner, Rachel knew the risks only too well. They had made her more philosophical about life, acutely aware of its fragility, but also of the impossibility of clinging to it so desperately that one forgot to live it.