New Delhi, India – Bidotama, 26, is in the kitchen stirring peanuts in a pan. Every few minutes, she turns to her best friend, Mardza, 25, who is busy chopping tomatoes and slicing U-morok, a hot chilli variety, that will go into the special chicken curry bubbling on a two-burner gas stove. They speak in their native Meitei language and chuckle as they continue cooking. In the living...

In 1950, Roald Dahl wrote a short story titled Poison. The tale, set in colonial India and often found in deckle-edged children’s anthologies, tells a riveting story about racism. In the story, a striped snake called a common krait slithers on the stomach of one of the main characters. The journey to save the character from the krait’s bite brings the plot to a panicky crescendo, to reveal...