Walking over broken pavement down Park Avenue, only Subash Park separates me from the sea. It is a lush arrangement of tropical greenery in square gardens with brightly coloured swings and see-saws for children. It is very empty and will stay that way till about dusk when everyone comes out to play in the cool of the evening.

Before Subash Park turns into Childrens Park, the path veers left towards the ferry terminus. Bougainvillea froths and bubbles over the fence in...

It’s after 6 pm in the evening but the heat still hits me when I step over the plane’s threshold. Whoah…the jumper that has been my loving companion for the last four weeks suddenly feels claggy and stultifying.

My taxi driver, Joy, is efficient in getting me loaded into his waiting Ambassador. We’re almost ready to go but he notices me fossicking around.

‘Seatbelt?’ he asks pleasantly.

‘Yes,’ I look up at him, ‘you have one?’

He shakes his head and smiles as if...

Waiting with Alice in reception for her lift to the airport to show up, the door of the hotel is being left open a lot and a chilly breeze is finding its way in. The reason, I soon observe, is to expedite the egress of hotel staff conveying broken pieces of wood. As I notice the aqua green paint of my room’s décor on some of the bits, I assume renovations are underway.

Outside, seeing Alice off, I see the same guys piling the wood in a modest sized tee pee in the...

While we have been in Varanasi, the TV news has been dominated by the release of the Nano, a one-lakh car, by the Tata Group (that is, when they’re not slamming Australian umpires and replaying Ricky Ponting’s homophobic activities). A lakh is equal to 100,000 rupees and is equivalent to approximately $AUD3,000.

Amid the triumphalism el-Nano is causing, environmental groups are already questioning the Nano’s claims that it is eco-friendly. Apart from the fact that it...

***Warning: this piece may engender severe derisive lip-curling in the more scientific amongst you***

Post morning pujah, I have granted myself the rest of the day off to try and reverse my exhausted consumptive state. Sarah ‘Holy Cow’ McDonald’s dicing with death by pneumonia is starting to figure in my imagination. And just quietly: what a killing that woman must be making on her story about her year off in India! I have not been in a single bookstore where it is not...

Even during the overnight train trip to Varanasi we could discern the rise in temperature. If we needed further evidence, the surrounding farmland was more extensively cultivated and was lush, bordering on tropical.

After we have had time to re-humanise ourselves following the thirteen-hour trip, a local guide takes us on a tour of the nearby town of Sarnath. This place is considered very holy due to its connections to the life of Buddha. It is here that he gave his...

We have left Rajasthan and now find ourselves in UP (Uttar Pradesh). The scenery is becoming more lush and more widely cultivated. We pass many fields of mustard plants that remind me of the solid yellow rapeseed fields in Switzerland. The fields that aren’t bright yellow are bright green with wheat. Also more prolific now are the stacks and rows of drying cow patties. We pass them in circular fortress structures and in rows like plates in a drying rack. Every small...