30 March 08 (About the 29th: Condom conundrum)

That afternoon, on our way back - from watching the firangs doing “Kar Seva” - to join the rest of the group at FS, S said we needed to get some condoms for that night. I said, “Yes of course, sorry, I hadn't been thinking.”. So back in B'pur, after dinner, as the others headed back I said I had to stay back in the market area to go do some errands.

Brian offered to accompany me, as I should have known he would, keen as he is on every opportunity to experience something more than the rest of the tour group. It was un-natural and awkward saying “No” to him. He said he wouldn't mind the walk, he liked looking around at all the shops. I said “No” again, he'd had a long day and we had an early start the next day. He looked sideways at S, and said that I was the one that had slept all the way back from FS ... then luckily, he let it drop.

In the market area, my first thought was to ask at a paanwalla, but they are always surrounded by hangers-on hanging around, and plus I didn't know the hindi for “condom”! I don't remember ever being so nervous even when asking for hash golis. However, on reaching the market area, the first place I came to was a paan shop (The paan shop outside the restaurant we'd eaten at was obviously too risky!) that didn't have any fatrus hanging around at that moment, so I decide to ask for a condom. The paanwalla said to go look in an “aushadhalaya” down the road past the photo-ki-dukaan. It took me a second to realize he meant dawai khana.

Sure enough, past the “Fotofast” was a pharmacy, its front lit by vertical tubelights on the sides and on the central column. I was hoping the condoms would be one of the items hanging on display near the front so I could suavely look for my “usual brand”, but no such luck. The elongated inch long blue or black packets hanging in strips on the sides turned out to be paan parag. I looked around at the things in the shop, under the display counter, waiting for the crowd to disperse into the cool night. One of the older assistants asked me, “Hanh sahab?”, but I said I hadn't decided yet and he just turned away to the next customer.

Finally there was a lull in the crowd and I approached the counter again and realized to my horror that it was young woman who now asked me what I wanted! I blurted out, “Condom!”.

She asked, “How many? One only?”

I felt insulted, but realized that she had sindhoor in her parting and thought maybe she knows something. I said “No” and having actually calculated this numerous times, I asked for a dozen, thinking that would be the end of the conversation.

Instead, she asked me which brand I wanted! In the fog of embarrassment, I said the first name that came to mind “Durex” - grateful to the powers of advertizing - feeling like a contestant who'd beaten the buzzer, and added “with spermicide” just before she could ask me about it. I fervently hoped she wouldn't ask “Colour?” or “Flavour?”. She did something worse then, yelling out very matter of factly to the 8-year old chhokra at the back of the store, “Lalu, ek dajun doorex, spermicide wale!”. I stood there, my ears burning hot I thought my glasses would melt and fall-off yaar. During the last minute or so the empty shopfront had suddenlt filled up with customers waiting around. Then of course the bloody chhokra handed the condom packet to the counter-clerk to bundle up, and yelled to the cashier across the store, “Unkil ke liye ek dajun doorex, ispermicidewale!”.

I paid and scooted off, feeling so frazzled that I thought I wouldn't get an erection for weeks. Of course the moment I associated the condoms I'd just battled to win with S, that problem solved itself. I broke into a jog to hurry back but it was very difficult running in that state.

I decided to stop at my room before going to S'. Partly it was to prolong the delicious sense of anticipation, excitement and assuredness (?) that coursed through me, knowing I would soon, as soon as I wanted, hold her again. The other reason was so I could familiarize myself and try on a condom by myself. Only when I had it on did I realize that I couldn't easily get it off – I couldn't roll it off w/o pulling hair, it was too tight to slide off (the lubrication was all on the outside) and it was too tough and elastic to rip. I didn't want anything sharp anywhere near me either. Anyway I just left my chuds off, pulled my pants on and ran down to S' room.

We didn't make it past the entryway to her room, and all she said was, “Naresh! You came prepared!”.

30 March 08 (About the 29th: To Fatehpur Sikri and back)

I fell asleep as soon as I got back to my room, but not deeply, as one would have expected. I missed her and didn't understand why I'd had to leave. If she hadn't wanted to have sex anymore I could have done that, and I could have been discreet while she left to go for her walk with the Leftie-Rightie twins. The receptionist's wake-up call roused me finally, I didn't feel rested and I was filled with doubt. On the one hand, I was half-afraid that it had been just a one-night stand for S, though I couldn't help wishing that even if it were just that we could make it a week-long one-night stand. I thought also that perhaps in the light of day, walking with her fellow Americans and recalling her life in the US and that after all she was just holidaying here, she would be filled with some kind of remorse about her marriage, which hadn't yet ended and about which she seemed to be conflicted - after all, she had planned this trip for her husband and her to reconnect. On the other hand, I was afraid that she was just not that into me, after all, she is older, and more experienced - which in this case was very easy for her to be. I oscillated between this vision of her rejecting me unrequitedly, "Oh Naresh, I can't do this anymore, it is tearing me apart!" and her brushing me off, "Oh come on Naresh, all we did was spend a night together - I don't know what you expected. It was wonderful but it is time for us to move on.".

Another part of me was thinking that even in the case of her continued interest in me, it would be easier if she did ignore me, that otherwise I would pass the whole day just waiting to return from FS, thinking about nothing else but being alone with her again, and that it would be unbearable to suffer her nearness and presence all day long in broad daylight in India with hordes of people and tourists, and taboos! Recall that walking around Jaipur with her had already made me uncomfortable, when I was not even being interested in her, and if it is true that Jaipur is not Pune, it is more so that Fatehpur Sikri, regardless of the foreign tourists, is not Jaipur!

And, Vinod, this was NOT something I had planned to happen and in me defense, let me submit my third blog and the casual disinterest it evidences.

When I went down to meet everyone for morning chai before taking the rented Matador to Fatehpur Sikri, I found that S had saved a seat for me at her table! So it was to be intolerable waiting all day long! The uncertainty had been resolved, but was the cat alive, or dead?

BTW Vinod, most of the group is very happy with all the bird watching yesterday in Keoladeo, thoroughly pleased with the leisurely rickshaw rides through the park and the respite this trip has provided from the hangama of Jaipur. Today's visit to Fatehpur Sikri was also a big hit. The guide that Salim had pre-arranged for us (is he a regular with you?) was bursting with stories about the palaces, their inhabitants and the intrigues that would take place between all these historical people, various romantic tales and tales of cleverness and valour. A veritable walking Amar Chitra Katha. I think some of the stuff he was just making up on the fly – FS was occupied as Akbar's capital for a very short time wasn't it? Plus it was after his great campaigns were over, right? Anyway, the guide must have memorized his architectural spiel very accurately, because he would switch into a different mode, his eyes would glaze over, he would look off and up and he would rattle off the Hindu influence and the Mughal influence and the alignment of the buildings and their purpose and names rather tonelessly, in contrast to the animated tone he had when he was relating the stories.

This guide's manner of relating the architectural details was reminiscent of that waiter "Sex!" at Shiv Sagar that we would tease so much: he would rattle off the dinner menu and then we would ask him, "What was that after the Bhendi fry?" or "Achha, will we get dal with the thaali?" and his unique response would be to rattle off the whole menu again. I guess it was funny at the time, or we were drunk. You know it just occoured to me, we used to end up tipping him rather heavily at the end of the meals, was it just an act for him, was he pulling one on us?

Anyway, back to our day at Fatehpur Sikri. On our way there, the bus driver stopped at a little dhaba-type place just before entering the village of FS, for nashta and chai, again. Across the highway was the village school, with a large luxury bus -which had the name of a big Agra hotel all along it- parked in front and a whole lot of firangs, to the back and off to one side, with pickaxes and crowbars and other digging tools! I was totally intrigued, so I walked over with Brian to see what was going on. There was a small, dusty, stony, uneven field between the back of the school and a low stone wall - just your typical village or town school playground, where all the tourons were gathered, along with a couple of self-important and bossy seeming Indian seths. The firangs were measuring and laying out string and trying to hammer wooden pegs into the ground. They were all wearing normal clothes (for tourons) so they weren't obviously some religious sect or anything.

Three people got off the bus (the driver, the conductor or chela and the Agra hotel's tour guide), leaned back on the bus and watched the firangs at their business, so I went over to chat. Turns out this is some “voluntourism” (the Agra guide's term, not mine!) daytrip, where all these 5-star hotel tourists get to do some community service by building something or the other. Apparently it is quite a regular and popular feature now! Their project for the day was to build a level playing field for volleyball or hockey, it was never clear to me which, for the school kids. I asked the guide whether the tourons were paid the usual labourer's wages, and he replied that no, in fact they pay the hotel Rs.2,000 each for the privilege – luxury bus from Agra, hot lunch prepared for them on the spot, thankful villagers etc. This is all so they can “connect” with the communities, see how they live and have a “deeper experience” of India. While we were chatting, one of the women in the group called out to the guide with a big smile, “Don't just stand there, come and help us dig.”. 
You can imagine how well that went over with the Agra guide. He sauntered off and Brian and I headed back to our group. Brian mentioned that he had read something about this kind of  "voluntourism" in travel mags in the US and had been curious to find out who went on these trips. My conversation with the Agra guide had been in Hindi, so I told Brian that the impression I had from what the Agra guide told me (rather freely, I think he must have taken a look at our Matador and decided that we weren't competition) was that this was just one day from the whole tour package, no one came here exclusively to do this. It was an option offered by the tour company and some of their customers signed up for it in advance, but since it was run by the hotel, other guests signed up for it after arriving at the hotel. The hotel had some kind of partnership or connection with a NGO which would suggest places and activities, but he, the Agra guide, had never actually seen any representative of the NGO at the sites he'd been to. I asked Brian whether that satisfied his curiosity about the make-up of the group, but he wasn't sure. 


Nice gimmick! You should try it with your company. "Spend a night in an authentically reconstructed jhopadpatti, hookworm infestation $40 extra, disinfection free!" Should I put together a business plan?

In the middle of touring FS, after lunch, I decided to take a break from the guide's prattle and skip the rest of  the tour. I asked S if she wanted to come with me to find the "Diwan-e-harem" and explained my little joke to her. She readily came with me and we went to take a look at the schoolyard project. It was a short walk down from the palaces and through the village to the school, but the sun beat down, it was dry and hot and still and bright and silent in the heat, or rather, the only thing you could hear was the heat beating down in waves, pushing away all other sound, though occasionally you would hear a far off tractor or a village dog bark. I was glad our group had taken your suggestions for protective clothing and had adopted them myself.  It never gets like this in Pune.  Anyway, the Agra tourons seemed to have made great progress – the field had been leveled with stones and they were getting ready to fill it with dirt or sand, a big mound of which had been deposited nearby. None of the Indians with the group were anywhere to be seen, they were probably in the cool of some chai-house, or even better, napping in the A/C bus! I said something caustic to S about the kids playing volleyball on rocks, but she said, “Look, they've done some good, they've made something, I don't see any Indians doing this.”. That silenced me, and I said that she was right, the tourists would feel some connection and they will leave with a deeper sense of India than just magnificent and decrepit looted ruins and colorful handicrafts. That is when I noticed that the stone wall behind the school had disappeared! Guess where the tourons had obtained the stones for leveling the field! None of the Indians with the Agra group were around however, so I didn't pursue the matter.

Later, when we were leaving FS for the bus-drive back to B'pur, the driver stopped again at that same “Restoruant”, for tea before the 45 min drive back! Must have taken a theka in it. At the school now, all the firangs and the luxury bus had left, but a small crowd of villagers had gathered, they seemed angry and there was some amount of yelling going on. I walked across, alone this time, to see what was happening. The stone wall, it turned out, was the property of the farmer of the fields behind the school and demarcated the boundary. The voluntourons had used it as a source of stones to fill in the playground, and now someone was going to have to rebuild the wall. Maybe next week's tour group at the Agra hotel, or a tour group from a rival hotel would do it? Recalling your injunction, I decided to not mention it to anyone in our group.
Next time you take a tour group to FS, take a look at that wall/ground and please let me know how it turned out.

30 March 08: (About the 28th, Bharatpur)

Hey Vinod, sorry yaar, but I'll do what you say, I'll handle it.

I thought I had blogged more day-before-yesterday, but I mustn't have saved it when I left my room. Anyway, while I was blogging night before last, my mobile had buzzed that S was SMSing, she was back from dinner and wondered whether I wanted to see her, so I went and snuck past the bar to her room without anyone from the group noticing. The receptionist looked up but ignored me -- maybe this happens a lot in these groups. At least I wasn't in Jaipur, I don't know how I could have snuck out of there, not with my faithful nephew sleeping on the floor in my room, with his faithful bai sleeping at the entrance to the house, Gulab the decrepit chowkidar walking the perimeter blowing his whistle, banging his stick with the bells on it and finally the creaky gate that would have woken even Naani sealed in her AC room.

Well, my biggest worry has been solved, you know, about dying before... Though I have to admit that other than the fact of its occurence, the experience itself was disappointing - the first time was over before I knew what was happening. I was frantically jabbing around until she guided me in and I don't remember anything happening before it was all over, for me, before I even realized I had no control over this and she said, “Hey there's no rush.”. I blabbered some excuse about it having been a long time. As I'd run to her room (OK I admit it) I had imagined us fucking for hours, so it was humiliating to have everything fizzle out, literally. We did fuck for hours, just not in one go, brief spurts is more like it. She was saying very patient things, “Don't worry, it was good, it will get better”, holding me to her with surprising strength and kissing me and playing with ... me. That first night I didn't even get much of an opportunity to explore or get to know her, every time I started she would get frantically impatient to bang me again. Finally she sent me back to my room as she was going to go for an early morning walk with Leftie and Rightie. I asked her if I would see her again and she said, “Of course, where do you think I would go?”. Which didn't really answer my intended question.

28 March 2008: Bharatpur

Early this morning, everyone but Susan was gathered in the lobby, some with binocs in addition to the digicams. I asked Arvind where she was, he disinterestedly said, “I don't know. She went up early to check e-mail last night”. It wasn't daylight yet but we had to get an early start to see the birds and animals in Keoladeo Bird sanctuary. I had arranged cycle-rickshas for the tour in the park and paid them a small advance, but their living was made from the tips from satisfied generous tourists, so I wasn't sure how long they would wait for us. Someone suggested we leave her behind and she could just walk the mile to the Sanctuary. I went to go look for her in her room.

She opened the door to me and stepped back, so I went in. At the time she looked to me like on the first day, puffy faced and jet-lagged but today she also looked really down, her shoulder length hair was coming out of its ponytail and damp and stuck to her face and she didn't really respond to my “They are all waiting, how long will you be?”, until I asked her, “You look upset, are you all right?”. She said she was OK, but then added that she wasn't sure she would go. My first thought was the alu-bondas with chutney at the stop on the way over here yesterday that some of them insisted on trying, instead of sticking to the safe hotel-packed lunches. No one else had complained, but still ..., so I asked if it was her stomach. She put her hand low on her stomach, seeming to press it in, and I was convinced it was “Rana's revenge”, some kind of dysentry. Again, she said that no, it was nothing. I then thought it was some woman-thing you know and asked if she needed medicine. She looked at me, flabbergasted, and started to smile, but I noticed tears welling up in her eyes. She turned away, crying, and said the jerk had been sleeping with his GF in their apartment, “I can't believe she is sleeping, living in my apartment!”.

Until then I'd just had my hands stuck in my wind-cheater pockets. I said I was sorry, it must be horrible and don't know what came over me leaned to give her a pat on her shoulder and a hug. She started kissing me, held me really fiercely with her arms around my neck and pressed against me. Not that I minded, but she surprised me and pulled me against her against the wall. She was half sobbing into my neck and half kissing me, I think I was just paralyzed. When I very tentatively put my hands on her sides she grasped them impatiently and moved them up and down her body, breathing hard against my neck. I have to say I was feeling a little faint, as if the blood had rushed from my head. After a few moments of my immobility and passivity – I simply didn't know what to do, none of my fantasies or plans had prepared me for this reality, not for her desire nor for my unpreparedness – she brought my hands up to her breasts, under her clothes! This was all too much for me and I pushed her hips away from mine and said lets go they are waiting. She smiled, her lashes still wet, and asked what was wrong, didn't I like her. Problem was, suddenly I like her too much. I just said it was OK, that wasn't it, nothing was wrong we had to go see the birds...

Once, at a rock show at the PEC festival, we were commenting about that desi hanging out with a foreign woman and one of us asked, “How do you get a foreign woman yaar?”, and the all-knowing Valmik had replied, “Arrey, you don't get a foreign woman, the foreign woman gets you!”. 

Anyway on the whole the rest of the day went off OK. The mid-day outing was to Lohagarh Fort, leaving the dusk hours for another excursion to see more bloody birds, which I have skipped so I could just come back here by myself. I was somewhat distracted and missed the lunch spot and we took another half-hour finding it. Susan was kind of avoiding me, pretending I didn't exist, Brian and Arvind seemed to have become very buddy-buddy, the rest were oblivious thank god.

Ellen and John had latched on to me, as a sympathetic Indian “who understood what it was like to come to India from the West”. All this on the basis of my having mentioned my trip to the US as a 12-year old and my having listened to their experiences in India without comment. Apparently they'd caught a lot of flack from the family of their friend in Mumbai. So I had to listen to them recount their India woes - all the events that happened to them in Delhi and Mumbai before coming to Rajasthan. Turns out the camera wasn't stolen, they left it in the back of an auto while they were visiting friends in Bandra! They were returning to the house of the mother of some old graduate school colleague or something after shopping and took an auto from the train station. Later that night, when they were re-packing for their flight to Jaipur, they couldn't find their GPS. They recalled they'd put it in the camera bag ... which is when they realised the camera bag was missing! They'd then wanted to register a complaint with the Mumbai police accusing the rickshawalla of theft. I asked them how they knew he'd stolen it and John replied, “ Well, he didn't bring it back. We must off left it in the space between the window and the back seat when we got off.”. St. Louis must have very honest rickshawallas. Anyway, since they didn't have the autoriksha number, their friend's father dissuaded them from going to the police. Clueless yaar -You want to see the fort or you want to talk about your life?

Once we crossed over the stagnant moat, the fort was surprisingly cooler than  the town surrounding it.  I had visited it before with my family but my father never paid for a guide so there were all these details about

27 March 08 Bus Trip

Who would have thought? This hotel in Bharatpur has internet access – all the foreigners probably demand it. Seems like all of them are world famous intrepid travelers. There is a bunch of them down in the lounge, their faces lit blue from their screens, managing to hold some distracted  conversations while they upload their latest photos and blog away. 

On the van trip here, I was sitting at the window in the front passenger seat, so I could keep track of where we were going. I've got a backache from sitting and twisting around since I kept pointing things out to the tour group in the back and giving them those tour-guide ones. I was wedged between Susan and the window and Arvind was sitting in the aisle. He and I had a conversation about physics, philosophy and religion; and I am proud to report that I stayed away from Eye-rock, Afghanistan, Packistan and POTUS. Susan wasn't participating much, she had her sunsglasses on and seemed bored so we were kind of talking around her. These yanks really take up a lot of space.  She's slimmish, but she was leaning away from me and her bare thigh (shorts of course, they all had these loose pants, pyjama cut but kacchha material that my bhaiyya school mates used to wear for underwear, but at the first opportunity half of them would revert to shorts.) was pressing against my jeans. I was uncomfortable so I squeezed away but then she settled her head on Arvind's shoulder and pressed even more into me. You know, a few years ago a moment such as this would have led to minimum two days of bliss (you remember Shaw's story about the Koli woman who was squeezed against his knees in the crowded BEST bus - he was in love for a week at least!) but today I felt uncomfortable if not intimidated. Its not that the attention was unwanted, she is quite attractive, but was it even attention? Plus, I don't think this is the kind of "liaison" you had in mind and I remember your "no mingling too much" rule. I still have this ache in my side from sitting twisted trying to avoid any wrong ideas.

We are playing South Africa (Chennai, 26-30 march, SA 540, In 627 etc to draw, no rest days since 1995) and Brian has been devouring the Test match against South Africa in Chennai and getting his cricket fundas cleared by whoever he's following with, yesterday the receptionists watching it on the TV behind the hotel desk and today with the bus driver on his radio. Someone wanted to know what a test match is, they have been subjected to snippets of it on all the TVs around. So I explained cricket a bit starting from "it is 2/9 of baseball action but spread over 5 days". At some point I mentioned that Tests used to have rest days, which brought out a laugh, “What do they need a rest from, standing around and having tea brought out to the field doesn't seem so tiring?”. They also can't get their minds around the three outcomes, Win/lose, tie if both teams get both complete innings and score the same, or a draw if there are unfinished innings. That, and the fact that  you can play for 5 days and have a draw. I tried explaining that a draw is not an inconclusive result but it went nowhere. Looks like it is going to be a really high scoring draw on the supersoft Chennai wicket.

26 March 08: Errands in Jaipur

Vinod has been reading my blog, while looking after his older kid who came down with something and was up all night. Again! Reminds me of Mittal's joke soon after the birth of Vinod's first kid: What is the parenting book Vinod and Ujjwala should read? Hint: it is a collaboration between LaPierre, Collins and Rushdie. Freedom from Children at Midnight!

Ellen and John, the youngish couple from St. Louis, had to replace the camera they bought specially for the trip. It was stolen before they even reached Jaipur. I'm glad I didn't bother with a camera. When I'd asked Vinod if he wanted photos-shotos on the blog he'd said, “No, just write to me what is going on. Besides, there is not a single perspective of any part of Rajasthan at any time of day that has not already been photographed and posted.”. Good point.

After dropping John and Ellen at a camera shop I was going to run errands in the afternoon, preparing for tomorrow's trip. Salim was to take the others touristing to where-ever was on their schedule. Instead of going with the group, Susan offered to come along with me, I don't know if it was OK, but I was caught by surprise and recalling Vinod's Second Law of Tourism (Keep the Tourists happy.) I said “Yes.”.

So it all took longer since I had to explain everything we were seeing to Susan, who was very curious about everything. For example, “Why is that man walking around naked with a broom?”. “Well, why not, anybody can walk around with a broom.”. OK, in case Vinod is getting worried, I didn't leave it at that, I did explain about the Digamber Jains etc. Though you would expect to see them in Jaisalmer, not here. Maybe he was on his way to catch a flight there.

At one point we heard a deep staccato and traced it to a butcher shop with fly-covered, skinned animal carcasses hanging on hooks at the entrance. I helpfully explained to her that a butcher was chopping up meat, perhaps for a Jaipuri version of dalcha, the dal and minced meat dish they serve at Tawaa. Susan confessed that she had never seen meat being chopped like this before. Neither had I, up until then, but I didn't say anything, it wouldn't do to shake the tourists' faith in their all-knowing guide. 

Normally if I am running errands like this, between one place and another I can just take the time to look around. Of course, today I couldn't do that. Plus, I had to walk slower. Americans can't seem to walk in a crowd, they either just stay on their course like an ice-breaker or slow down to let people get out of the way instead of just nipping in and out, they seem to need more clearance and what I would consider little bumps and brush-byes seem to affect them, they keep apologizing as if anybody cared or understood. Also, I am not really used to being stared at like this, I've never walked around in Jaipur with a girl, let alone a firang! Pune, of course, is different. All these lafangas were kind of giving me knowing looks or staring hard at her, and at least in the shops I had to enter I pretended to ignore her as if she wasn't really with me.

BTW, Vinod, before you decide to complain about my taking your tourists on un-authorized tours of Jaipur, since Susan helped me carry the bags, I saved you Rs 40 in riksha fare!

25 Mar 08: Hawa Mahal

Susan and Arvind seemed to hit it off, they've been engrossed in conversation all the time and flirting with each other. Susan has now explained that she is getting divorced, but her hubby has even refused to move out yet saying its really expensive and a waste of money which he doesn't have. I asked, naturally, if they are getting divorced now, how come they were planning this trip together?. She said she'd planned it some months ago, she thought it would be a nice romantic get-away, to “re-connect”! He apparently told her he was dropping out two days before the trip, when she asked why he wasn't packing yet. Half the group was around over-hearing all this when Susan said, “You know, the things he's done, he's such a pathetic desperate f***, I think everybody, even his new “client with benefits”, should know about this. I am going to start blogging about my life with the X, like that woman Welsh-Smith or the other who made a video blog about her X's porn and Viagara.”. I had actually seen it – just you know, browsing, there was even a news report about it -- and anyway the woman looked like she needed a friend, but what was really scary were the comments on her video-log. So I told Susan you can do that, but don't allow dialog on your deolog, the comments are all hateful and even the people who can't seem to keep away from reading it will revile you in the most horrible terms. She should just drop it nah?

This morning, as was the plan, we took them to Hawa Mahal. The way they were pronouncing it you could make it into a joke about the royal families after independence: now you hawa mahal, now you don't. Once the tour members were safely in the hands of the guide there, I sent Salim along with them and sat down in the shade in a corner to read, finding the stones beneath me more cooling than the paltry breezes in the upper reaches.

Before leaving Pune, I'd picked up something at that bookshop in Gaekwad Nagar, a Balkan writer called Slavoj Zizek. Good thing I made it past his reverential reference to Lacan, because other than that his ideas about the causes of current situations around the world seem very perspicacious. OK, a lot of the more philosophical digressions I don't get and some is very tedious going, but on every page or so there are a couple of sentences that are like flak-lights that suddenly pierce the darkness – in a direction you've blindly peered at before – to illuminate an unsuspected construct, that you feel is wondrous, without quite knowing why.

In the afternoon we went to Johri Bazaar nearby to buy jewellery. The guys weren't much interested and since I had to accompany the women to the shops, they'd decided they would be OK on their own. Luckily for me and the women in the group, since I was not at all familiar with the area, Meghana offered to help me out and take us around, show them the “good” shops where they wouldn't be fleeced toooo shamelessly. As she put it, “if fleecing firangi tourists isn't good Friedmanian trickle-down economics, what is?”. When she met us at Hawa Mahal after our tour there, Brian suddenly developed an interest in jewellery and decided to accompany us! What are your rules BTW, about lafdas on the tour and “mingling with the natives”? I swear, by the end of the afternoon, after Brian was done lapping up all the stuff Meghana was very animatedly and flashing kajal-eyes lapeting out about the styles and the historical connections and the meanings of various design elements of the jewellery, his head-waggle was so extreme I thought it would fall off.

When I got back home in the evening, I was told that Ranjan had stopped by looking for me, so I walked over to his parents' home. I'd missed his wedding and was keen to meet his wife too. I greeted his parents, and chatted to them a bit. His father was concerned that I had just given up a job and his mom was concerned that I wasn't putting on weight and when would I come over for dinner, that she would make “wheat gluten curry” (I can never remember what it is called!). Though I had come prepared for the invitation and prepared to decline it, armed with important sounding “so busy, Auntie” excuses, I immediately said OK. It should have given me some pause when she added, “You know Ranjan doesn't like that dish, but he doesn't have to be here, you and I can have a nice chat.”. Naani and my parents are summoning their forces!

Just then Ranjan walked in with his wife, a saree-clad, single long braid-wearing wisp of a thing. I shook his hand, turned to her and said nothing more than “Pleased to meet you.” as I stuck out my hand to shake hers. She seemed to suddenly whisk herself three feet behind Ranjan and out of my sight! Ranjan said, “She's working on her English yaar, why don't we walk down to the paanwallah for a smoke?”.

On our way there, after kicking out of our way random building kids playing cricket in front of the lift, I asked Ranjan about “married life”. He replied that it was good, he was quite settled. I'd been puzzling about this whole thing, so I continued, “So how come you agreed not only to an arranged marriage, but, as I heard it, to a girl basically chosen by your parents, your mom? In college you had all these girls totally fidaa over you!”

I watched our shadows lengthen ahead of us and fade, and new ones arise behind us that overtook us, hurrying towards the paanwalla but never making it, as Ranjan responded to my questions, “I came back from Delhi to see her and all before things were completely pukka yaar, and like that, she is a rishtewali, a second cousin on my father's side, but not from Jaipur you know, a more traditional side of the family. And forget about all those college girls, basically I needed a wimmin.”

“But I don't get it man, it was so quick I didn't even have a chance to get leave and come to your wedding? What big rush was going on? And I thought only Muslims did that stuff about marrying their cousins!”

“Firstly, we Rajputs do it also, for both Hindus and Muslims it is a high caste thing. You couldn't understand, your family is basically farmers made good in business. And the rush. you haven't figured it out? Writing software has softened your brain, you should never have switched from chip design. You know Chintu got married two months after I did? Well he met a girl in college, dead serious from the start, going to have lunch at her house and all that. As soon as they passed out from college they wanted to get married. My parents had no objection to that, but you know in our community the older son has to be married before the younger son. So while I was in Delhi working at TCS, major drama scenes were taking place in my house between my brother and my mom, until my mom sent out feelers through my grand-aunt and only then they let me know what was going on.”.

The red glow of the dying beedi made a lazy arc as Marlow threw it into the open gutter behind the paanwalla.