“Chandresh had dysentery, and he was weak from walking and malnutrition. He didn’t have the will to live any longer and he wasn’t fighting. He was ready to go. His wife and daughters were already dead. Chandresh’s mother-in-law had been separated from the family for days until people who knew them said they passed her unburied corpse miles back. Ashwin begged me to find her and bury her, and I did. When he realized Chandresh was dying too, I could hear his heart breaking, tightening in his chest, tying itself into a knot. He bent over his son, tried to get him to drink the few drops of water he had, but Chandresh clamped his lips and shook his head. Ashwin removed his son’s turban and brushed his hair from his eyes as sweetly as any mother tending her newborn.
“Listen, he whispered to his
