It is the summer of 2004 – along and typically sweltering summer in the Subcontinent. A summer made even more unbearable by the inability of Asia's newest nuclear powers – India and Pakistan – to provide uninterrupted water and electricity supply to their major urban centres.
The euphoria over becoming nuclear-weapon states has long since evaporated, and tempers are running high on either side of the border. Battered by sanctions, the economies of both countries are barely limping along. And there is internal disarray as disenchanted citizens take to the streets day after day to protest the power and water shortages, and the lack of economic progress.
Politics reflects the civic disarray. The 2003 general election in India has thrown up yet another hung parliament, with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies managing to retain power by a whisker. In Pakistan, a fresh constitutional crisis has once again paralysed the government.
Gathering storm
Far removed from the tumult of the cities, along the India-Pakistan border in Indian Punjab, 12-year-old Kewal Singh, a shepherd, is beating the mid-day heat with a nap under a banyan tree. As he wakes up toward evening, he realises that some of his small herd of cattle have strayed across into Pakistan.
Kewal Singh is not worried – this has happened before, and he has always managed to sneak across and bring them back. This time, however, his luck runs out. As he crosses the border, he comes across a Pakistani Army patrol.