Land of contrasts

India as the land of sharp contrasts was brought home on a fleeting visit to a mall on Sunday. 
In many rural areas, bathing is a luxury not frequently afforded. When possible, some one will run to the store for that tiny cake of soap ususally used in guest rooms. There it will do for the whole family, with any leftovers carefully stored for some future emergency.
And there in this lavishly appointed store were huge chunks of different flavored soaps offering customers exquisitely different experiences.  Inquiries yielded that the cost of a 10 gm sliver would range from anywhere from Rs. 40 / to 60/-.  Would that little sliver suffice for the generous abulations of M'Lady or M'Lord, or perhaps one of their little ones, I wondered.

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