We entered the restaurant to eat and blanched. The table right in front of me was covered with flies. I took a step backwards, the girls took a step forward and exclaimed,” Mommy, mommy, look, flies.” I nodded grimly and turned to look around. A man eating at the table next to us pointed vaguely to a distant corner and said” Go there.” I turned and walked out trailed by two eagerly chattering girls, one tired husband carrying one very curious baby. Next door was another restaurant, open air as the one we had just visited but no flies. We sat down and ordered our lunch. The mango juices fresh and cold soothed my constantly waging thoughts on life in India and I gazed out at the green trees and let the children and husband voices wash over me. Over lunch, a couple of dogs weaved in and out from under our table licking our crumbs oblivious to the girls laughing, screaming and valiant efforts to keep their legs away from them. Cheese sandwiches, summer salad, mushroom crepes- the lunch was almost impeccable. India, a study in fierce contrasts soothes me in moments of calm. I observe the girls getting out of their air-conditioned cars and home and walk on the roads. They count the cows, goats, kids, they talk about milk coming out from under the cows, they ask me why people don’t take the dogs home, why we don’t take a hungry dog home. I remember a time when I did. When my mother would find me standing outside the house feeding milk stolen from the kitchen to feed the strays I would stumble upon.Now, I am not so optimistic. Now, I avoid the eyes of the homeless, rarely look at the animals. Now, when I have so much more materially than I have ever had in my life, I am filled with a sense of hopelessness. What use is the penny to the homeless, the sip of milk to an animal that will live its days out in the sun and rain living always on scraps? Though sometimes I do stop. Boys throwing stones at a dog that wants to play with them, security guards waving big sticks in the faces of road peddlers to get them out of their door-ways- sometimes I stop, sometimes I yell and sometimes someone listens, sometimes someone laughs and sometimes someone yells back at me… But I realize I do it now more for the sake of my girls. Indifference to injustice is a terrible thing. Memories of who I was stir me and I speak up for that girl who was and for these girls who are witnesses and my hope for a world that could be just a little less indifferent.