The monsoon rains of the following year arrived not as a relief, but as a relentless, brown flood that swallowed the low-lying courtyards of Shanti Sadan Orphanage.

Inside Ward B, seven-year-old Khwahish sat on the edge of her wooden cot, her small brown legs pulled tightly against her chest to avoid the damp draft seeping through the cracked floor tiles. She wore a faded, oversized cotton frock that had belonged to three older girls before her—its hem frayed, its yellow color washed down to a dull, sickly cream.