While volunteering in a village school near Lucknow some years ago, thestraight words of a little boy revealed one of life’s lessons to me. I wasfilling in for the schoolmaster for a few weeks, teaching children of all agesto read and write. Bored of regurgitating the alphabet one summer morning, Ithought I would encourage the kids to bathe under the hand pump near the schoolinstead. My suggestion was promptly ignored, and the children exploited thesituation to disperse early. But when I persisted on the days which followed, Iwas soon granted many wonderful photo opportunities: the children would play inthe water lying flat on their stomachs, pretending to swim, crying ‘Machli,Machli!’ On the first of such days, after I had convinced Hariya – a youngboy of eight or nine – to take a bath, I casually asked him: "Don’t youwant to bring a change of clothes from home?" Hariya’s answer remains withme to this day. "Garib aadmi hai na didiji. Ek hi kapda hai."