Diary 
Andrew O’Hagan
Howra Station is on the quiet side at 7.38 a.m. A sheet of dust lies on the surface of Platform 13, and there, just under a sign for Horlicks (‘the Great Family Nourisher’), a pair of yellow birds peck and bounce in yesterday’s stomped chewing-gum. The people will come in a minute: the thousands of clerks on trains from the Calcutta suburbs, and dust will cover their shoes and the birds will scatter. But at 7.38 the station is quiet. Three small boys are sitting in the space between the tracks, their dirty limbs gathered round a fire of loose coals and plastic bottles. Together they are eating something. This is where they eat; this is where they live.
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Andrew O’Hagan’s The Atlantic Ocean, a collection of essays on Britain and America, will be published in June. Be Near Me, his last novel, has been shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
Other articles by this contributor:
At the Design Museum · Peter Saville
Hating Football · Andrew O’Hagan deserts the Tartan Army
Blame it on the boogie · In Pursuit of Michael Jackson
How to Survive Your Own Stupidity · Homage to Laurel and Hardy
Disgrace under Pressure · Andrew O’Hagan reads some lad mags
Still Reeling from My Loss · Lulu & Co
The Nominee · With the Democrats
Good Fibs · Truman Capote
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