He was borderline cretin. Having failed in the 11th grade twice, his widowed mother could no longer afford to feed his gargantuan appetite. She weaved one kusti daily to keep the fire burning in the wood fed stove in their large and shabby house in a down-market area of Navsari. Her second cousin, a longtime editor of a Gujarati newspaper in Bombay, grudgingly consented to meet the boy, after several plaintive postcards.
"How is your general knowledge?” asked the editor. The boy mindlessly grinned at his uncle, unable to understand the question.
"What is the capital of India?”
"Mumbai,” said the......