Boatmen

Chloe, who, till then, had never heard an echo, looked first at the sea and listened to the boatmen as they sang, and then turned round to the woods in expectation of seeing the other men who, as she imagined, were responding to the chorus.

On a clear October day, Naini Lake shimmers in the afternoon sun as boatmen row tourists across the hill resort’s prime attraction nestled amid lush, pine-clothed Himalayan peaks.