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Authors: Katherine Russell Rich
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here. Bara tempos, oversize mass-transit rickshaws, also all canary. An ox cart rumbles past. On the ox's horns, a ring of fading yellow around a ring of fading blue.
Evenings on the mountain above Fateh Sagar lake, the lights leading to the Monsoon Palace glitter, a crooked line of diamonds in the dark. Even in these circumstances, India can't stay white for long. At night, when it can't fill itself in with colors, it adopts the glitter of jewels.
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" WE ARE SHOCKED and saddened by this dastardly attack," the e-mail from Delhi headquarters had said, adding that it would be better if we didn't go out alone. Soon my social life consisted of field trips. On the first, we toured a Styrofoam gallery where the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Eiffel Tower, and Vishnu's-head-complete-with-snakes had been rendered in polystyrene. At a folk performance, a man who looked like the performer Prince in a dress balanced ten clay jugs on his headâon a metal cupâand walked daintily around the stage by rocking on the edges of a metal bowl. "The dance represents a lot of time in the desert with nothing to do," Helaena said.
At a renovated
haveli,
a manse built for a nobleman, she showed me where to find the erotic art painted low on a wall for newly-weds to see. "I can assure you," she said, laughing, "no Indian man is that well-endowed." Previously, she'd described her investigations. In Jodhpur, site of her last study abroad, there had been several scandals, she said, adding in a contrite tone, "And I was at the center of all of them." Two teachers' marriages had been undone by enthusiastic investigations into the oblique case. There'd been a scrape with a Rajput prince, romantic torsion with his Rajput cousins, an ill-fated excursion with an older Rajput man to Bangkok. "I have a weakness for Rajputs," she'd said.
Outside the Lord Ganesh wing, she reported the latest piece of palace intrigue. "I think your puppet has become smitten with someone else," a courtier had told the maharana, alerting him to what the palace spies had discoveredâthat Helaena appeared to be on the verge of committing some indiscretion. But the grapevine was clueless about the extent of the perfidyâthat the maharana's own nephew was involvedâand therefore, the maharana was still oblivious too. On hearing the report, he'd only laughed and said, "It won't get very far." In fact, neither had he, yet.
Each time we emerged from another informative folk exhibit, Swami-ji announced the latest international development, usually a dastardly act by Pakistan. "Pakistan is going with Bin Laden," he informed us when we returned to the bus for the next leg
By the end of the day, China was rolling toward the border, Israel had bombed Afghanistan, and I'd figured out Swami-ji's news source: the bus driver, who was getting his facts from other drivers when we stopped. If Swami-ji noticed this, it didn't deter him. "India is on red alert," he announced as the bus pulled out of the Garden of the Maidens. "Within twenty-four hours, America will bomb Pakistan." The teachers all shook their heads gravely.
Â
AROUND THAT TIME , I was perpetually flummoxed, one reason I was fond of an ad that ran in the
Times of India,
urging readers to enroll in a course that would, by means of "three simple truths," leave them "one hundred percent English-Fluent." Its tone conveyed the hysteria I felt. " And remember this, " it insisted, "You can't pick up fluency in English thro' any other language. NO! Course designed by the eminent scholar Mr. Kev Nair. Don't wait for an emergency! Ask for prospectus now."
I liked the concept of a language emergency in theory, till an afternoon following the mountain getaway, when I returned home to find one in progress at the Jains'.
I'd brought my shortwave radio into the kitchen to use as a conversational prop. Everyone had gathered round to see it. "You have bought this downtown?" Ekta, Alka's thirteen-year-old and the designated
Evenings on the mountain above Fateh Sagar lake, the lights leading to the Monsoon Palace glitter, a crooked line of diamonds in the dark. Even in these circumstances, India can't stay white for long. At night, when it can't fill itself in with colors, it adopts the glitter of jewels.
Â
" WE ARE SHOCKED and saddened by this dastardly attack," the e-mail from Delhi headquarters had said, adding that it would be better if we didn't go out alone. Soon my social life consisted of field trips. On the first, we toured a Styrofoam gallery where the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Eiffel Tower, and Vishnu's-head-complete-with-snakes had been rendered in polystyrene. At a folk performance, a man who looked like the performer Prince in a dress balanced ten clay jugs on his headâon a metal cupâand walked daintily around the stage by rocking on the edges of a metal bowl. "The dance represents a lot of time in the desert with nothing to do," Helaena said.
At a renovated
haveli,
a manse built for a nobleman, she showed me where to find the erotic art painted low on a wall for newly-weds to see. "I can assure you," she said, laughing, "no Indian man is that well-endowed." Previously, she'd described her investigations. In Jodhpur, site of her last study abroad, there had been several scandals, she said, adding in a contrite tone, "And I was at the center of all of them." Two teachers' marriages had been undone by enthusiastic investigations into the oblique case. There'd been a scrape with a Rajput prince, romantic torsion with his Rajput cousins, an ill-fated excursion with an older Rajput man to Bangkok. "I have a weakness for Rajputs," she'd said.
Outside the Lord Ganesh wing, she reported the latest piece of palace intrigue. "I think your puppet has become smitten with someone else," a courtier had told the maharana, alerting him to what the palace spies had discoveredâthat Helaena appeared to be on the verge of committing some indiscretion. But the grapevine was clueless about the extent of the perfidyâthat the maharana's own nephew was involvedâand therefore, the maharana was still oblivious too. On hearing the report, he'd only laughed and said, "It won't get very far." In fact, neither had he, yet.
Each time we emerged from another informative folk exhibit, Swami-ji announced the latest international development, usually a dastardly act by Pakistan. "Pakistan is going with Bin Laden," he informed us when we returned to the bus for the next leg
By the end of the day, China was rolling toward the border, Israel had bombed Afghanistan, and I'd figured out Swami-ji's news source: the bus driver, who was getting his facts from other drivers when we stopped. If Swami-ji noticed this, it didn't deter him. "India is on red alert," he announced as the bus pulled out of the Garden of the Maidens. "Within twenty-four hours, America will bomb Pakistan." The teachers all shook their heads gravely.
Â
AROUND THAT TIME , I was perpetually flummoxed, one reason I was fond of an ad that ran in the
Times of India,
urging readers to enroll in a course that would, by means of "three simple truths," leave them "one hundred percent English-Fluent." Its tone conveyed the hysteria I felt. " And remember this, " it insisted, "You can't pick up fluency in English thro' any other language. NO! Course designed by the eminent scholar Mr. Kev Nair. Don't wait for an emergency! Ask for prospectus now."
I liked the concept of a language emergency in theory, till an afternoon following the mountain getaway, when I returned home to find one in progress at the Jains'.
I'd brought my shortwave radio into the kitchen to use as a conversational prop. Everyone had gathered round to see it. "You have bought this downtown?" Ekta, Alka's thirteen-year-old and the designated
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