Megha learnt to read early. It was a month before her sixth birthday when she finished her first big book. It was The Mystery of the Hidden House by Enid Blyton. She had discovered it in her father’s bookshelf, sandwiched between his thick medical journals. The pages had turned a bright ochre and came off easily. Her grandmother said that one of her cousins had left it behind many years ago, and she had saved it for Megha for when she started reading.
Megha was drawn into the world of the Five Find-outers and dog. She read about the mysterious goings-on in the British village of Peterswood with envy. She imagined herself in her their midst, holding secret meetings behind her parents’ back and looking for clues. Unlike them, ‘things’ never happened to her in the northern Indian town of Kanpur. Most of her afternoons were spent in the dispensary at her father’s clinic.