On Sundays, I take my grandmother to the cemetery to visit her mother. With her is a straw broom, small enough to carry in a reusable bag. When I was young, I would pull from that broom, break its straw to pieces, and throw them, watching as they spun to the ground like helicopter seeds. Now, in my grandmother’s hands, the broom brushes away dirt and moss and leaves from a headstone that shares my name.

On a cold February morning, driving solo through dense fog on a narrow potholed road from Amritsar, Panjab (the land of five rivers) in North India to a recently not-so-quiet hamlet of Dera Baba Nanak, umpteen thoughts clouded my mind.