‘I am not bound by my past,’ the voice tells her, ‘I make me’

In extracts from Somini Sengupta’s book The End of Karma, the stories of two young Indians hoping to escape from a life of service and drudgery
• Q&A with Somini Sengupta: ‘India has the largest concentration of young people in history’

Saturday night, suburban Gurgaon. The sky turns from blue to black, the burnt-toast smell of fireworks blows across the ravine, and tall, broad-shouldered Varsha hauls a hot coal-iron over the shimmering finery of others.

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