“Use the old ones!” her mother called from the kitchen, where the sound of mustard seeds crackling in hot oil punctuated every sentence.

Anjali, now 28 and living in a glass-and-steel apartment in Gurugram, had traded the lotah for a ceramic mug from IKEA. She had traded the neem tree for a view of a flyover. She told herself she had traded up.

Her mother looked up, eyes crinkling. She didn't say “Of course.” She didn't say “Finally.”

She lit her diya . She placed it on the windowsill, next to her brother’s crookedly fixed bulbs. She did not open the laptop.