Angel: A sketch in Indian ink

In the heat‑blown plains of the North‑West Provinces, a lonely bungalow with a pink‑stained wall watches the world pass by. From behind its closed gate stands Angel, a small, wiry girl whose blue eyes hold a quiet longing as she watches carriages and strangers drift past. The colonial station around her hums with the clatter of polo grounds, reading rooms and the distant sigh of acacia branches against a relentless sky, setting a backdrop of both grandeur and isolation.

Through Angel’s eyes the story unfolds: a child caught between the rigid expectations of British officers and the softer, often indifferent world of the local community. As she watches the adult conversations about marriage, money and propriety, a subtle tension builds around her forgotten existence. Listeners will be drawn into Angel’s quiet resilience, the mysteries of her family’s past, and the delicate dance of cultural misunderstandings that shape her early years in this vivid portrait of colonial India.