The fragrance of slow cooked meat wafted through the darkening street and stopped short at Joya’s nose. Dinner was still hours away and even then, her mom would serve up boiled beans and carrots and say ‘Eat your vegetables Joya. Today is a vegetarian night’. Six nights of the week were now ‘vegetarian’. Her mom had recently started listening to a podcast by a health ‘expert’ who had explained that animal protein causes cancer and kidney disease. ‘Plant protein is best dear’, she said. So now the daily meals, which had already been ‘healthy’ were now fit only for a vegetarian grasshopper. Joya resentfully stared at up at the shop selling the biriyani. Glaring lights spilled onto the street in a frenzy of good spirit. Raucous, well-fed people floated around inside, flaunting their good luck. Sullenly, she turned away. Her gaze fell on the house standing beside the shop. Joya caught her breath. Just next door to the eatery, but it may well have been a house on the moon. Its façad...