My stomach churned. A variety of dals, vegetables and parathas with mixed grains, rotis stretched thin, and rice, salad, and papad; all the affluence of the otherwise poor village was spread on the table. I ate my way through the spread slowly, over the danger of stomach growls and burps, before giving up.

“You’ve hardly eaten anything,” the sarpanch said. I pushed one final morsel down my throat and smiled at him, “This is more than what I eat in an entire week.” Then, I called his daughter, Rila, and told her that I needed to use the toilet.