The other side of the fence

Flesh-and-blood people can be invisible even when they're standing right in front of us

Last week, Sanjay Singh, our presswalla didn’t show up to collect the clothes for ironing. The next morning when he arrived, the pile of laundry was huge. “I’m still a little tied up with an urgent personal matter,” he said, adding he won’t be able to iron the entire pile. The conversation that followed was startling, for it made me realise that just like flesh-and-blood people like them can be invisible even when they’re standing right in front of us, so can their brick-and-mortar houses.

Last week’s rains had brought showers of inconvenience to the Singh household. “My one-room house is