In 1888, the British laid out a grid of three-room bungalows in the town of Mullaipuram, in the state now known as Tamil Nadu in southern India. The bungalows were built for married NCOs in Her Majesty's Armed Forces. After Independence, they were acquired by the Indian Police Service and designated as housing for lower- and middle-ranking officers. These buildings still stand today, reabsorbed by India, their slipshod extensions pressing this way and that in the search for more space to collapse in eventually. Number 14/B is the home of Sub-Inspector (retired) R.M. Swaminathan. He carries a morbid fame in these parts for having once attempted suicide using only a puncture-repair kit.

With his wife and six daughters, Swami has lived at Number 14/B for ten years. On the day they moved in, he ripped out the interior doors and broke them up for firewood. Why would an Appa and Amma put a door between themselves and their children? Better to sleep together, side by side on the floor, your wife snoring like a pond of croaking frogs, your youngest babbling unconscious nonsense as her knees twitch amiably against the backs of your thighs.

Swami, Amma and three of the girls are watching the youngest girl dancing Bharatanatyam-style to a raga playing tinnily on an antiquated Murphy two-in-one tape player. Her name is Leela. She has a skinny and imperious facility in the art. There is a language to speak by small modulations in gesture, a semantics to convey with the angle of the elbow. A semi-trained instinct tells her what is the best phrase her body should reveal at each moment, leaving her mind to do something else in a place she can never remember afterwards.

Amma performs the entire dance vicariously, using only one eyebrow. This is a talent that comes with middle age. Very good, she is thinking, very nice – thank God she's still so young. Particles of gram flour lie in the wrinkles of Amma's knuckles. "Six daughters and no son to lighten the load" – that's what people say of her.

There is something else that people say of this family: "Six dancing girls and a father who can't walk!" The taunt is almost true. Two years ago, Swami administered a mild custodial beating to a Very Guilty Suspect in the lock-up of Mullaipuram Police Station, but whereas the VGS suffered five minutes of terror and a single cracked rib – which was surely the least he could expect for being so guilty – Swami suffered an intracerebral haemorrhage in the left hemisphere. The stroke left him with speech and mobility problems. Perhaps he'd been a sitting duck for it, given his high blood pressure, his greediness with food and his lack of exercise – but he prefers to think that it was set off by the acute stress brought on by selflessly beating up a criminal in the line of duty. And for evermore, Amma has resented the VGS for causing this misfortune to befall her husband. Wasn't the fellow the cause of all her misery? Because of him, hadn't her husband lost his job and seen his salary replaced by a half-pay disability pension? And worse than any of these hardships, Swami has lost his pride.

"Appa, see!" one of his daughters shouts, entranced by Leela's haughty signature in resolving the dance.

Yes yes, I see. Seeing is something I can still do ...

"Tea, Appa?"

The question is put a few seconds after the music dies, before Swami has adjusted to its absence. When a father watches his daughter dance like that, he needs a moment to die as well.

"Appa, tea?"

Tea, always tea. Do they think I enjoy p