There comes a moment in a nation’s life when the crimes it has committed mount, they collect, drop by painful drop, and form a giant trembling wave that, like Vonnegut’s sequence, awaits a shore. India has escaped the moment of catharsis that Germany experienced. After the war ended, the victorious Allied forces showed in batches to the Germans visuals of the concentration camps, and what was found in them. The Germans looked away. Why? Why did the Germans, most of whom had not participated in the holocaust, why did they look away? Because that was their moment of catharsis. They as a nation, they as a collective conscience, realised the horror Germany had perpetrated. The Germans held each other’s hand and stood up. They faced the wave. And it changed Germany. For the better.