`Friendship was indeed a value for the villagers, more for men than for women. Two good friends were said to be `like brothers’ (literally, `like elder brother-younger brother’, annatammandirahage). I heard this expression several times and l could not help recalling the statement of an elderly English colleague who had told me that he and his brother were very close and had written to each other every week. He had added, `We are very good friends.’ That is, friendship connoted intimacy in England while in Rampura (as in rural India everywhere), brotherhood conveyed intimacy’.