THE GATHERING OF four to five chai stalls couldn’t care less. Excitable tourists are tolerated, chai addicts are welcomed, and idle writers are viewed through a curious gaze—all with that special brand of nonchalance so specific to island life. As you sip unhurriedly on a small glass of chai with a sweet, ginger-rich aroma, the backdrop wraps itself around your imagination.
Up ahead, a short boat ride away on the Andaman Sea, lies Ross Island. Once a fabled address christened the ‘Paris of the East’—replete with a pulsating social life, a printing press, an exquisitely appointed grand ballroom with flooring of rare wood and the dreamlike splendour of an opera house—it now rests in ruins as a theatre of enigmas. Decrepit cathedrals, fragments of buildings that once were, and the ghosts of better days lie ensnared in
