Summary

“The Tree of War” by Tanya Datta starts with Krishna, a ten-year-old boy, who is playing with his two friends in a tree. The three boys are playing a game called Nuclear War, in which each branch of the tree represents a country and the winner has to nuke the country of his choice. The boys’ game is interrupted by Krishna’s mother, who calls him to come home. The boy is embarrassed and disappointed that the game is stopped, but promises to meet with his friends the following morning.

While walking home, the boy thinks about the way in which things have changed in his life once his father came home from India, where he lived for the past six years. The boy always lied to his friends when they asked him about his father, inventing stories about...