CaptionThe lighthouse at Kovalam, 1962
TextThe lamp room smelled of brass polish and old rain. Every evening at six, Anand climbed the ninety-two steps, counted them aloud, and lit the wick before the sea turned grey.
His sister said the ships no longer needed him. There were radios now, and lights that ran on their own. He agreed with her, and climbed the steps anyway.
ChapterChapter One
HeadingThe Ninety-Two Steps
TextFrom the gallery he could see the whole bay: the fishing boats coming home in a loose line, the school roof, the long white curve of the sand where the boys played on Sundays.
He wrote it all down. Wind from the south-west, four boats out, one late. A heron on the breakwater. Nothing that anyone had asked him to keep, and all of it worth keeping.
When the light came round it swept the water in a slow white arm, and for a moment the whole town was his to look after.