The village of Dhondbari lay baked and cracked under the relentless summer sun, a forgotten scattering of mud-walled houses and dusty lanes. For Rohan, a city boy forced to spend his vacation there, it was a prison of boredom. The air was thick with the smell of cow dung and drying earth, and the only sound was the incessant drone of crickets.His grandmother, Aaji, was a creature of this ancient land, her skin as wrinkled as a dried riverbed. Her days were governed by rituals and superstitions that Rohan found absurd. Her most solemn warning concerned the old banyan tree.......