When Ravi Singh was no taller than his father's knee, he used to believe that his father's study was home to every book in the world.
Ravi Singh's father was a proud schoolmaster, often referred to as the most knowledgeable man in all of Aulapur. When Ravi Singh was no taller than his father's knee, he used to believe that his father's study was home to every book in the world. Now he knew better, but at a very early age he had been acquainted with the works of John Steinbeck and Thomas Hardy, and several other writers whose names his classmates could not spell. Most adolescents progressed from simple and easily understood writing and children's stories to more complex works, but Ravi Singh enjoyed no such luxuries. He was not necessarily fond of this literary yoke, but his father had nonetheless drilled zeugmas, double entendres, and even chiasma for good measure, into his skull.
It was clearly the most brightly-painted and noble structure in that part of Aulapur. Perhaps its out-of-place appearance was what made Ravi Singh stop in his tracks and squint up at it.
Having been made to learn In Xanadu by heart the night before, Ravi Singh floated through all his classes that Monday, seeing everywhere the ghost of Samuel Coleridge smoking a bidi with an equally ghostly Kublai Khan. As soon as the bell delivered him from his tedium, he ran to Mahajan Sweet Shop and assumed his customary position, waiting.