Family Burden

From inside the Gandhi SUV, there's little sign of looming disaster. Sonia, 57, is sitting up front; her children Rahul, 33, and Priyanka, 32, are behind, and all three are beaming out at a crush of villagers who envelop the silver jeep and whose faces and skinny bodies are sliding across its windows like a human car wash. Sonia opens her door to stand on the sill, and the crowd shrieks and surges forward, a hundred arms straining for a supplicatory touch of her feet. Priyanka waves, and a tight knot of some 100 hands waves back. Rahul opens his window...