The Five Wounds

Notes on the books

The Five Wounds is fiction, but it is built from real things: letters that could not be delivered, account books opened at Diwali, the hour a family waits for, the pump a town queues at. These notes tell what those things are, with their sources, and where they appear in the books.

All notes

What is a dead letter?A dead letter is post that can be neither delivered nor returned. How India's Dead Letter Offices began, became Returned Letter Offices, and what they do.
Muhurat and the auspicious hourA muhurat is forty eight minutes and a chosen good time. How families read the panchang and choghadiya, and why weddings wait for Chaturmas to end.
Bahi khata, the red account bookThe bahi khata is India's red, cloth bound account book: how it is made, why it is red, what goes on its first page, and why it is renewed at Diwali.
The village hand pumpThe India Mark II hand pump was designed in India in the 1970s after a great drought. How it came about, how it works, and why a town meets at it.