This is also when the domestic help arrives. The bai (maid) is not a servant; in middle-class India, she is an essential part of the family lifestyle. She knows who snores, who has a stomach ache, and who is hiding a boyfriend. She brings gossip from three other apartments. The grandmother offers her chai. They discuss the price of onions.
If you have ever stood outside a residential window in Mumbai, Delhi, or a quiet village in Kerala just before sunrise, you have witnessed the prelude to a symphony. It begins softly: the metallic click of a latch, the chime of a temple bell, the hiss of pressure cooker building steam. By 6:00 AM, the volume rises—a grandmother chanting prayers, a father shouting for the newspaper, a teenager arguing about the Wi-Fi password.