20 September 2021
When I was 14 I shaved my head, stayed in a room alone for three days, and then dipped in the cool morning waters of the Ganges. It was all part of a common Indian ritual, a rite of passage between childhood and adolescence. The alone-in-a-room-for-three-days part was meant to be a time for contemplation and meditation, but I took it as an opportunity to read David Copperfield cover to cover. "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show," wrote Charles Dickens in the voice of David Copperfield, and as a teenager searching for my own story, I was enraptured.
