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After installing cameras on all four sides of Shreedharan’s house and directing the video feed to his smartphone, Appu asked, “How do you feel now, uncle, when you see this?”

“Feels like I am peeping into my own home while sitting inside it.”

Appu could not decipher the expression on Shreedharan’s face when he said that. Appu left after showing him how to control the cameras. Shreedharan continued to watch the phone’s screen, bewildered like a nosey child who had peered at something forbidden. Later, he checked the address he had scribbled on the library book two days ago and rode out on his motorbike.

Once, when he was in class six, during the summer holidays, Shreedharan had sneaked into his neighbour’s compound to pick up windfall mangoes. Noticing that some of the fallen mangoes were starting to ripen, he aimed a stone at a bunch hanging at the tip of the tree. But he missed the target and the stone landed inside Devayaniamma’s house. A startled shout of “Aiyyo” from inside the house did not make him flee. Instead, he had an odd urge to go and check who had been hurt.

He opened the windowpane slightly and peeped inside. What he saw left him...

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