“Time passed, it seemed to him, not so much because the sun sank almost imperceptibly in the sky but because it changed colour in its descent. Its yellow turned to light orange and with it, the water around him too changed tones. Immediately surrounding the raft, it became a sort of dirty lemon-green like fresh sugar cane juice but further away, it was gunmetal grey right till the distance where, almost as straight as an enormous ruler, he could see a band as blue as the Sulekha ink that they used to use in school.” Abani, a boy of indeterminate...