Madhav should not have ignored his sister’s advice. He should have taken an umbrella. It was lucky that he was within running distance of Tower Records on Guadalupe when the first drops of unseasonal rain hit his head. Now he wandered along the rows of compact discs, reading the labels, waiting for the downpour outside to exhaust itself. He could not hear the rain because the store was throbbing with Toni Braxton’s ‘Unbreak my Heart’.
‘My f*****g heart is f*****g breaking here,’ Madhav fumed inside. ‘How long will this f*****g rain f*****g continue? f*****g fuck.’
‘Ma-dahv’ a well-bred lady’s voice reached him from the back. He turned around to see a white man, too white, smiling at him. Madhav had two thoughts at the same time: How did these firangs manage to get the stress wrong every
