1.   Along Kashmir Road, the narrow street that runs past the school, horns honk, gears grind and engines sputter.

2.   But in the four years since the end of the boom, the corporate gears have been grinding to adjust to far rougher conditions.

3.   Hill has seen the actual gears grind.

4.   In its absence, the gears of democracy grind in noisy dissonance to a screeching halt.

5.   Meantime, the automatic gears of bureaucracy grind on, bungling everything.