The middle-class were whooping the death penalty for Jyoti Singh's rapists (left) but it is ironic, how a high court upholding the sentence in the gang rape of Bilkis Bano during the Gujarat riots, did not arouse the same reaction. File pics

I returned to India last week from the US. It was an emotionally-draining visit: watching a friend die in semi-rural New England; catching up with my daughters in paradisiacal California; and spending time with my elderly parents in hyper-hipster Brooklyn, New York. America is fascinating, but her people are a bit cold. I looked forward to India, my homeland and home for the past 30 years. In the week gone by, however, I increasingly found Indians to be a bloodthirsty lot.