But, unlike his fellow-villagers, he was renowned for having a deficit: he had been born in a lean year, and, to make matters worse, an estranged aunt had once lifted him from his crib and praised Heaven for what a gorgeous, fat, rosy baby he was thereby sealing forever his fate to be generally impoverished, crippled, struck down and taken by the Devil at some unexpected time, in some terrifying way.
NEWYORKER: The Tiger��s Wife