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