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smell of garbage and human excreta intensifies. There are dogs everywhere; some are rabid with frothing mouths. I turn around and see a group of men walking behind us, silently. None of them look away when I glare at them.
    I grab Sara’s arm more tightly and say, ‘This is not a good idea.’
    Looking shamefaced and sick, Sara doesn’t reply.
    Before we take another step we hear a shout ahead of us: ‘Welcome to our home.’ The entire Agnis team is standing in front of us, giggling and jostling each other, as though unable to contain their joy at seeing us. They are a short team, but over here, in their own surroundings of squalor, they tower over everything, looking as out of place as we do.
    I look back and see that the men following us have vanished.
    Mary steps out and takes Sara’s hand. She tells her, ‘I am too happy to see you. I thought maybe you will not come. Let me show you my house.’
    We follow her into a tunnel of corrugated iron and emerge onto a narrow dilapidated walkway of bamboo poles, lashed together on stilts. There are holes in parts where the feet of passers-by must have previously fallen through. The whole structure moves as I walk. Fatima holds my arm, anxious that I don’t slip into the black sludge below.
    She points to a soft muddy field in the distance and says, ‘Memsahib, this is where we practise every day. We have to fight with those boys who play cricket there. Sometimes we hide their ball so they can’t play.’ She grins and looks at me, waiting for me to say something.
    My mind is focused on where my feet land, so I blurt out a question, ‘So, do all The Agnis live here?’
    â€˜Some yes, some no. The Agnis began here, in this slum. When we started to win, girls from nearby slums joined us and Amitji—best coach—heard of us so we also get free coach.’
    That explains the team’s recent wins. She then tells me that even in the slums there is a hierarchy of poverty: the higher the floor of the residence, the richer the tenant. One team member, Aarti, lives on the fifth floor of a chawl, the highest floor. Her kholi has a balcony. This also means that her family can afford to pay for an illegal electricity connection.
    â€˜Four hundred rupees a month just to see in the night,’ Fatima quips cheekily.
    She goes on to add that Rahima, the only Agnis player who can afford Bata sneakers, lives on the fourth floor of the same chawl. ‘Her father is lifting cement there,’ Fatima says and points to the building coming up next to mine.
    We reach Mary’s ten-by-ten-foot kholi on the ground floor, which is divided into three rooms with the help of two curtains. Her sister sits on a small stool in the kitchen area. With a steel spoon, she is stirring a metal pot balanced on a domed clay oven. Her mother, my maid, is lying on a jute charpai with her hand over her head. When she sees us, she jumps out of bed, joy written all over her face. She touches my feet, a sign of respect for elders, which I don’t deserve.
    â€˜I cannot believe that you are in my house. I thought Mary was playing a joke on me when she said you might come. I don’t know what to offer you,’ she says in Marathi.
    â€˜Nothing,’ I reply in Marathi. My snobbery disappears on hearing her quavering voice.
    Before I can say another word, Mary’s sister plants a glass of tea into my hand and one into Sara’s.
    It’s hot and there’s no place to put it down.
    I look at Mary’s mother.
    She takes the glass from my hand and rests it in hers.
    Then she raises her eyes, weighed down and weary by illness. ‘Now that you’re here I hope you can talk some sense into Mary. I have broken my back so my daughters can study in English-medium colleges and marry some nice railway clerk, but all Mary wants to do is play basketball. I don’t like it when she plays against you, our mai - baap. And our chawl