He stops at the door of one such house, bangs a wobbly iron door with his foot, and pushes it open. We enter a half-built shack. In one part of it, thatched with dead grass,
is a firewood stove over which sits a large vessel of sizzling spinach leaves. On the ground, in large aluminium platters, are more chopped vegetables.
A frail young woman is cooking the evening meal for the whole family. Through eyes filled with smoke she smiles.

She is the wife of Mukesh's elder brother. Not much older in years, she has begun to command respect as the bahu, the daughterin-law of the house, already in charge of three men her husband,
Mukesh and their father. When the older man enters, she gently withdraws behind the broken wall and brings her veil closer to her face.

As custom demands, daughters-inlaw must veil their faces before male elders. In this case the elder is an impoverished bangle maker. Despite long years of hard labour, first as a tailor, then a bangle maker,
he has failed to renovate a house, send his two sons to school. All he has managed to do is teach them what he knows-the art of making bangles.