Some years ago, I was looking for an apartment in Delhi. I had just moved to India, and everything about it was frenzied and raw. Every place I saw was either too pricey or noisy or prone to attack by flying cockroaches the size of small birds.

Finally I found a flat with heavy wooden doors and a terrace that overlooked a pleasant street. The landlord, an imperious man with tufts of wiry black hair sprouting from his left ear, proudly pointed out the apartment’s features, including Western-style toilets, air-conditioning (a real luxury) and, he added matter-of-factly, a “servant.” I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the way that sounded, but I can’t say I was shocked either. I had been told that a great many people in India had servants (or what Americans would call household help), and I figured this was the sort of cultural difference I had better get used to.

A few days later, the servant loped upstairs and reported for duty. He was skinny, alarmingly so, with mahogany skin and sharp features. His name was Kailash, and he was 11 years old. This was a cultural difference that I was not prepared to accept. I started downstairs to confront the landlord, but then hesitated. I rationalized that if this boy, an orphan from a neighboring state, didn’t work for me, he would work for someone else, and who knows how that person would treat him? Washing my hands of Kailash seemed like a cop-out, or so I told myself.

And so every afternoon Kailash climbed the stairs and knocked meekly on my door. He was, truth be told, not much of a cleaner: he didn’t remove the dirt; he just rearranged it. But he was naturally kind, honest beyond reproach and, it turned out, a wizard with temperamental fax machines and printers.