One blistering April afternoon in Kolkata, I was walking home from a reporting assignment when I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Fold your umbrella!” a man instructed me, his index fingers mimicking a closing motion, “You’re taking up the space of three people.”
The Kolkata summer is savage – burning hot, witheringly humid. An umbrella is a basic, effective safeguard in this heat.
I pointed to the cars parked by the road, and the street hawkers. “Why
