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Chapter one · Behind the tehsil officeI was born in a two-room house behind the tehsil office in Gorakhpur, on a night my mother swore the electricity failed twice, so the midwife worked by lantern light. There is no certificate of it, only her telling, and she told it the same way for fifty years. My father repaired cycles. He could true a wheel by sound…Ramesh Chandra Vermafor Aarav and Myra, who kept askingRead the bookA demonstration book, read by 292 peopleChapter one · Ask the girl: my versionEveryone knows my father's version of 1996. Mine is different, and I want it on record: I was nineteen, and I was going to say yes. The family was good, the boy was decent, and I was tired of being the girl who stood first and made every room uncomfortable. I had the yes ready in my mouth. Then Papa said, in front of…Neha Vermafor Papa, who said: ask the girlRead the bookA demonstration book, read by 93 peopleChapter one · Tuesday, 11:40 pmIt is Tuesday, 11:40 at night, in the hostel, and I have just put down a call with Dada in which he told me the whole 1969 moon story, and I realised I have heard it perhaps six times and this is the first time I listened. He was seventeen. I am nineteen. He was standing outside a shop, holding a bicycle wheel,…Aarav Vermafor Dada, and the number fifteen spannerRead the bookA demonstration book, read by 64 peopleChapter one · Eleven relatives and the teaHe tells everyone that I looked up once in that room in Deoria. I did not. I was looking at his slippers. They were new, far too new, the strap still stiff across the foot, and I understood that this man had bought slippers for this one afternoon. That is how I knew he was as frightened as I was. There were eleven…Kamla Vermafor Ramesh, who went firstRead the bookA demonstration book, read by 127 people
The ones marked “demonstration” were written by us, to show what a finished book looks like. The rest were spoken by real families, who chose to share them.