Book excerpt: The Flight of A Stone Bird is about the triumph of the human spirit over the adversities that defined ‘indenture’ and its legacy. In the struggle to unshackle their bondage, men and women scratched out niches with bloodied hands to write a chapter of their existence, a shared destiny and a common destination. From the fragments of a common past and a mutual predicament, another bond emerged – the ‘brotherhood’. Emotional, enduring and powerful, devoid of the vestiges of caste or religion, this bond, which became as intimate as real blood kinship, was cherished by men well into their twilight years as a memory of a shared ordeal and of solidarity against the antagonism and adversities of a hostile new world. We shall forever remember those who built the steps we take.