Shreya Roy Chowdhury

The annual ritual of placements is about to kick off in the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), and Rohan Gupta is glad he is not a part of it. The final year student of exploration geophysics, a five-year programme at IIT-Kharagpur, West Bengal, was “given an out” by a pre-placement offer—he was offered a job by an oil-field services company where he interned in the summer.

“I am facing a bit of trouble buying food,” admitted Altafur Rehman. The only earning member of a family of four, Rehman’s income from weaving Banarasi silk saris has fallen to less than half of the Rs800-1,000 a week he was making in September last year.

Late in April, when the union ministry of human resources development (HRD) announced that officials of 32 state and central boards of education had decided to scrap the moderation of marks—also known as the grace marks policy—from 2017, school teachers across cities felt conflicted.

We are all glued to our screens, comparing faces. Are they mother and daughter, or sisters? Like all good-looking women, they confuse us. It’s genuinely hard to tell. It’s also hard to keep track of all the marriages. Not to mention the motives. Was it an honour killing, because this daughter from her first marriage was going out with the son of her third husband from an earlier marriage? And why on earth was her former second husband helping her? Was it because his daughter was adopted by the third husband? And where did the first husband go? Why is no one worried about him? The grandparents are adding to the confusion. They are numerous, and not always lucid.

So you want to be a godman in India?