Ashika's husband is an electrician with a Gulf dream. He had passed an interview and had gone to Delhi to verify his certificates.

"I wanted to go with him," says Ashika, eager to visit her uncle. "I spoke to my uncle asking if I could come," she says. "'Don't come now. In January I want all my people to come here together, so I can spend some time with you,' he told me," she says, looking forward to the prospect.

"My husband met him for 30 minutes."

"When he was a scientist I used to talk with him very often. Not these days," she says with a shrug. "Now the phone call goes through three people before he answers. I don't like that, so I don't call unless it's very important."

She proudly shows me a photograph taken (see slide 01) when Kalam dropped by to see them in August.