Harappa

Three seals from Banerjee's excavation bore images and scripts similar to those from Harappa in the Punjab province in present-day Pakistan.

In the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, the Indus civilization flourished in the third millennium bc, with remarkable cities at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro that featured brick houses, advanced drainage and a large public bath.

One of my favorite moments in Tokyo occurred late one afternoon at a smaller adventure playground, Komazawa Harappa, a long sliver of space in a tight residential neighborhood, masked from the street by a simple hedge.

The biggest cities here were Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, where some 80,000 people are believed to have lived.

In his 2011 book “The Harappa Files,” Banerjee describes the country as one “on the brink of great hormonal changes . . . a fast capitalizing society that suffers from bipolar disorder.”