The pull factor

Note: I missed out this post, so it should have come before The Story of the Blues.


India has a way of pulling you back to her, just when you thought you'd had enough of her. Just when you thought you couldn't take any more of her ceaseless raw nose, her extreme, unoticed filth and her constant demands on your patience and your purse.

I was tired of it all, probably because I was physically tired, but I just didn't have the physical or emotional energy to give or even to take what she had to offer. This was in Jaisalmeer, one of the most beautiful and alluring cities. The old city buildings are made of a honeycomb-yellow desert stone that glows like an elaborate sandcastle of dreams, but I'd lost interest.

Even so, I found myself out wandering its hot streets and cooling alleyways, more because I felt it was a waste to have come here and not seen them, rather than because I wanted to. Lost in its pretty alleys and courtyards, I simply felt exhausted. I took a few lacklustre photos but my heart wasn't in it.

As I walked past a little guesthouse, the manager, sitting on the step outside said, 'We have a great view of the temple from the rooftop. Come!' I was too weary to protest so I followed him, but he must have sensed my thoughts.


'Don't worry, it's free,' he reassured me. 'Come and see. Stay as long as you like.' Little did either of us know how prophetic the last comment was.



The view of the temple - practically within touching distance - was superb, as he'd said. We were so close to it's roof, that looked more like a decorative beehive made from the innards of a Crunchie. I was sure I could reach out, take a chunk and eat it. The rest of the city was laid out too, stacks of Crunchie, saffron and gold-glowing houses, piled on top of one another. Every so often was a window, open onto a private world, or another rooftop vantage points or restaurant, speckled with others enjoying the view and a cooling drink.


But once I'd taken it all in, it wasn't the view that kept me there and wouldn't allow me to tear myself away for the next few hours, but the manager, Luna, himself. He offered me chai and we sat on his rooftop drinking in both the tea and the view, as the sun lowered in the sky.

Luna was slight with a clear open face; warm, soft, sad-looking eyes and a ready smile. He said he was 33, but he seemed older. After just a few minutes in his company I felt relaxed in a way I had not yet felt with an Indian man. He had a peaceful serenity about him that seemed to soothe my tired mind just with his presence.


With Luna it was like talking to a friend. We didn't dwell long on standard traveller topics and soon the conversation had slipped naturally onto subjects I'd not talked about with Indians before.


He told me about this wife and two children who lived in a desert village and whom he hardly saw. He admitted, without a trace of self-pity, that it wasn't a marriage in the way Westerners understood it. They married when both very young and to have children, but there was now nothing more between them.I felt sad for him, but I could see that my European sentimentality - lamenting the loss of emotion, love, support and a friend to share his life - was somewhat lost on him. He showed no embarrassment, just an open honesty about his situation.


'Do you have a girlfriend here in Jaisalmeer?' I asked boldly.
'Not now,' he said, 'but I had a French girlfriend until recently.' And he told me all about a woman, originally a tourist, who kept coming back to Jaisalmeer to see him, but who ended their relationship about two months ago. His frankness allowed me to be bolder still.


'Have there been other foreign women?'
'Yes,' he said, 'a few. When I kissed a Westerner, an English girl, for the first time, I didn't know what she was doing,' he laughed, and I could in his voice hear the alarm he'd felt at that moment.
'She started kissing me on the mouth and I asked myself, "Why is she doing that? Why is she touching my mouth?" I married very young and I always thought you kissed women on the cheeks. I didn't understand what she was doing.' It seems he learned quickly, as things progressed with the English girl.


'When we had sex for the first time, I was shocked to see her natural colour,' he said. I didn't understand what he meant. He explained that, as he'd never seen a white woman's body naked before, he didn't realise just how white the bits that never saw the sun would be!


I was surprised to find that I didn't feel awkward in this conversation with Luna. I was not uncomfortable or embarrassed at all. It felt more like gossiping with a close female friend about life and love and I felt no pressure from him at all. As we talked, I shared some of my own relationship stories (though not my sex life!) and he listened, genuinely interested. He just loved to talk and to listen. He asked questions, he gave opinions, he listened and he shared himself. His approach was so unexpected, so honest that he refreshed me mentally in a way I didn't even realise was happening and in doing so, brought India back to me again.

That I would not have expected this type of conversation in India, and definitely not with a single Indian man was what made it so special. I was learning so much and my stereotypes were being chipped away, to reveal an Indian and, by extension, an India that was a broad and deep and thoughtful as any other country.

Luna didn't fit any stereotypes, with his 'westernised' experiences but his solidly Indian upbringing. I couldn't box him as a simple villager who'd moved to the big city; nor as a preying lothario who tried his luck with all western women (he never once made a suggestive comment or a pass at me); he wasn't a nosy, intrusive pest; and he wasn't trying to make money out of me. If he didn't fit my mould, then my mould was the one that had to break, not him be crushed into it.



Sometimes we didn't talk at all, just sat in comfortable silence, listening to the sounds of the city and watching the lights come on and the stars come out. When I left to catch my train, I realised I'd spent more than five hours in his company and, as with any good friend, I hadn't noticed time passing, nor had I regretted it.

The story of the blues

I was panicking a little as I still hadn't managed to see the famously bright blue old city of Jodhpur or take any photos of it and I was due to leave early the next morning. I was exhausted from the previous three nights spent either on uncomfortable sleeper trains with an infinite capacity to prevent sleep or in the desert under the cold, cold stars. I had decided to have an afternoon siesta and woke up at 4pm, later than I intended.

As the light was fading I quickly left my hotel to seek out the delicate blue houses that had been one of the major things I wanted to see in India. I have a great love of brightly-coloured houses and the idea of a pure blue city filled me with excitement and the possibility of endless easily beautiful photos.

The rickshaw dropped me off and I headed for the nearest blue corner I saw. The blue of Jodhpur is so pretty, being somewhere between sky and powder blue, with a chalky, dusty finish. Painted over the most delicate wooden shutters and carvings or daubed liberally on the softer, more rustic curves of plastered exteriors, it is a photographer's delight. Many of the houses also have contrasting leaf green shutters, which makes the composition of photos as simple as pointing and shooting - the colour and shapes do the rest for you.

Everywhere I looked was layer upon layer of cool blue dwellings, like an urban version of mountain ranges, fading off into the mists of distance. It was as if I was walking under a dry sea, with the odd scraggy pigeon transformed into a silvery fish floating above.

One particular house struck me so I climbed up onto the step of the house opposite to get a better angle.As I did, the door of the house whose step I was standing on, opened and a young lad of about 18 peered out.

'Are you lost,' he asked, 'or do you have a problem?' I explained that I was just taking photos and apologised for standing on the step of his house.

'No problem. ' he said. 'Our house is very old and we have some beautiful carved wooden ceilings. Would you like to see them?' I hesitated thinking, firstly, that if I I went in, by the time I came out I'd have lot the best light to take photos, and secondly that he might want some money. I decided to take the risk and the opportunity of seeing inside a private home.

I'm so glad I did! The ceiling in question was exquisitely carved dark wood and the interior of the house was painted the same pale blue as the exterior. This made it a cool, tranquil space and I fell in love with it. Karan was a charming host too explaining, like the best tour guide, how this ceiling was similar to the gold-painted ones in Jodhpur's famous fort that I'd seen that morning.

He was an student and a lovely boy, talking English rapidly and with great excitement. He was tall, skinny and wore little rectangular rimless glasses. The perfect image of a studious middle class Indian boy.

After telling em about the history of his home - which had been in his family for three generations, we stared chatting about other subjects. Karan was studying engineering and was refreshingly honest about his commitment to his work.

'I'm not very studious,' he said in his slightly quaint English, more suited to a 50-yr-old that a boy of 18, 'as I like to enjoy life to the full. Sometimes I just leave my books and go to the lake with my friends. I have a friend was is not so studious, so we scold him for getting bad notes.' I could not image any English boy of my acquaintance 'scolding ' a mate for getting bad marks. It was very sweet.

He chatted happily about the practical jokes he plays on friends, such as putting firecrackers in the cigarettes of one, to make him give up smoking. I was shocked, but he laughed it off. 'No, no, he was ok,' he said. 'Did he give up?' I asked.
'No,' he shrugged, as if this was the secondary purpose of his pyromaniacal experiment. 'But it was fun to watch.'

I was struck by how typically Indian this encounter between us was. As family is such a strong bond here and much of social and community life revolves around it, young boys must be familiar with and at ease talking to female family members of all ages, close and extended. To Karan, stopping and chatting to a 30-something woman was not only normal it was also interesting. I could be just another one of his Aunties, or an older cousin, for all he cared. For a women edging towards 40, it is a comforting thought that, in India at least, I will remain 'visible' to younger men for some time to come.

I really warmed to Karan and as he took me through the rest of the house and up onto their roof terrace with its perfect view of the old city and the fort towering over it, I realised that I would have to make a decision. I could either stay here and carry on chatting with him (he seemed in no hurry to get back to those books!), or I could make my excuses, leave and still have time to take the photos I wanted. The sun was now dipping behind a hill and already the streets were in shadow, so I;d have to be quick.

The decision was taken away from me when he said, 'My mother will make us chai and we'll drink it on the rooftop.' Such simple hospitality is impossible for me to refuse, so I abandoned my plans and sat back t enjoy the evening air and Karan's company.

As the light faded and the sky blue town deepened to indigo and then navy, I sat there with Karan and his mother and talked of many things.Of the price of houses in Jodhpur's old city; of the Rajasthani royal family and the respect in which they are still held, despite having no powers; and of the difficulties of getting into the top engineering colleges. Karan told me that more than 50 books have been written on how to get into IIT (Indian Institute of Technology), India's top engineering college. One of them, written by a former pupil, topped the bestseller list for 42 weeks!

Karan's mother didn;t speak much English but this didn't stop her joining in the conversation, by showing me and letting me try on her bangles (no chance with my manly hands!) and - via her son - explaining what was in the snacks she had given me.

Soon it was time to leave and as I left, I asked if I could take a photo of Karan and his mother. As I framed the shot, Karan took of his glasses and hid them behind his back. This tiny note of vanity was unexpected in someone like Karan. After I'd taken the photo I said, 'I saw you took off your glasses. You don't like to wear them in pictures? I do the same.'
'Yes,' he said with a charming lapse in his English, 'but you are aged and I am young. I don't like snaps of me with my specs on.' I laughed and agreed that he had a point.

I was so touched by the spontaneous kindness of these two strangers. This, I realised, is why I love to travel: chance encounters that enrich your journeys and warm human beings whose broef contact with your life has so much more of an impact than they realise.

A photo of a blue house may paint a thousand words, but for me, experiences like this are worth a thousand photos.

Walking with Bulldozers

The warm silence stroked my skin like the softest feather, healing my aching mind. The noise of the cities had scratched away at my nerves long enough, so a camel safari in the silent Great Thar Desert in Western Rajasthan was like a soothing balm.

We set out from just outside Jaisalmeer. A Jeep drove us out half-an-hour's ride into the desert to meet to our camels and guide. My camel was called Kaloo and although he seemed good-natured enough, he did protest slightly in a loud gurgling moan as I mounted him in ungainly fashion. He lurched to his feet as I clung on for dear life and, from the high vantage point of his back, I had uninterrupted views of the desert.

Some would not call it beautiful but to me it was. Not the waves of rippled sand dunes of storyboks, it was an arid land, it's crumbling, dusty yellow earth, quilted with low scrubby trees and desert plants. Spiky fine cacti, slender as green twigs, scratched at the sky and the broad flat leaves, curved stems and tiny purple flowers of the Acha plants made little puffballs of grey-green life across the scene. Low rolling hills gave way occasionally to rocky outcrops, while dirt tracks, fences and even power cables trailed across the landscape running off into apparent infinity.

As we rode west towards the golden light of the late afternoon sun, the warm breeze drew little curls of dust from the ground.We passed lone houses or small groups of huts, barely even villages, and every so often on the horizon, an old man swathed in dusty truban and long robes appeared, herding skinny goats, sheep or cows, their bells chiming gently as they moved.

I felt dwarfed by the space and the silence. As far as the eye could see, the desert unfolded its ragged beauty and the pure solid sky above was endless. In the empty quiet, gone was the crowing, shouting, clanging of rickshaw horns and the clamour of life. The clogging, choking fumes and dust of the cities was replaced by the scent of fresh air and nothingness.

I have a strange attraction to desolate, open, unattractive landscapes. Deserts, Salt flats, marshes, even The Fens, all have an indefinable quality to them that I love. While they make me feel tiny and insignificant, a pinprick of existence in their vastness, it is also their open expanses that excite me and make me feel alive. They provoke in me a delicious loneliness and melancholy that a picture postcard scene could never achieve.

My safari companions were a fascinating selection of individuals: A friendly German couple, Maria and Hubert, on a short 3-week holiday; our guide Delpat (who insisted on being called Delboy); and Rahim, Delboy's young nephew, who was leading the the camel carrying our provisions.

Delboy was a cheerful, expressively-moustachioed desert villager. In between shouts and clicks of encouragement to the camels, he kept up a chatty banter peppered with Delboy's famous phrases, 'luvvly jubbly' and 'bloody marvellous'.

The camels were characters too. Along with Kaloo they were Sonia, Rocket and Bulldozer. Bulldozer lived up to his name.Charging straight at every bush, he would brush right up against it, in a futile attempt to dislodge the flies that buzzed and settled constantly on him and us.Within seconds they were back.

This was very amusing for Hubert and me but for Maria, who was riding Bulldozer, not so much, as she would quickly yank up her legs and lean away to one side to avoid extensive laceration on the thorns and branches.

It was impossible to take photos on the lolloping camels, so for once I was forced to just relax and take in the surroundings. The low light stretched cool shadows over the dry earth and the warm soft breeze blew the silnce right into our very souls. I couldn't stop smiling!

Gradually in the distance a cluster of sand dunes rose up, signalling our stopping point for the night. The sun would set over them in a short while and I was looking forward to a magical night under the stars and to dismounting Kaloo, who was not a comfortable mount.

When delboy had found a good spot for our camp in the shadow of the dunes, we clambered off our camels - or tried to. After two-and-a-half hours in the saddle my thighs had seized up and I had to lean dramatically to one side to disengage the first leg and physically lift the other with my hands to get it over Kaloo's back. It was agony and the constant rubbing motion had chafed me in places one should never be chafed! Ladies, do NOT wear a thong on a camel safari, that's all I have to say.

Now we were stationary we scrabbled up the soft sand onto the dunes to watch the sunset and take photos of the landscape, while Delboy and Rahim started the campfire and began to prepare our evening meal. As we reached the top, we spotted a pinch of other tourists sprinkled on top of another dune, several dunes away. The solitude and 'non-touristic' sunset we'd been promised had not quite happened. It didn't matter, we could still enjoy the sight.

The cooler evening air had brought out the dung beetles from the dunes. Looking like big glossy black buttons, the size of a 10p piece, they hurried about, apparently nowhere, embroidering the sand with the delicate tracery of their feet. Crickets began to sing in the bushes and in the distance I could hear the faint clang of cowbells.

As the sound got louder, a young boy in glowing white shirt and trousers crested the dune ahead of us, but he had no cow herd with him, just a sack slung over one shoulder, from which this clanging was coming. As he approached with a grin on his face he called out,'Cold beer, cold beer!' It seemed that even in the desert we were not immune to the determined trader. We laughed as he opened his sack to reveal several bottles of cool Kingfisher beer. We bought some and watched as he left to try his luck with the other tourists.

Ahead of us the sun was putting on a spectacular show. Small puffs of cloud had sprung up and the light was staining them a delicate rose pink. The sky between was a cool indigo blue. As we looked on, sipping our beer and brushing away the persistant dung beetles, the clouds thickened to become flags of cerise, scarlet and gold, like so many stips of sari fabric stretched across the sky. It was as lovely as we could have hoped for and with a cool beer in hand, even better.

At the base of the dune, Delboy and Rahim had produced from scratch our meal of lentil dahl, chapatis and hot, sickly sweet masala chai. After our meal we relaxed by the fire and as night fell, Delboy began to sing haunting desert songs, beating out the rhythmn on the water cooler bottle we'd brought along with us. Over the horizon a brown moon rose and, silhouetted against it, the necks of the camels, so scruffy and lumpen during the day, took on the grace and elegance of swans.

Later I lay back on my bed in the flickering glow of the campfire, looking up at the immense black sky, its stars so clear you could see every one. Slightly drunk on the beer, the songs, the sunset and the empty silence I felt invincible, so tiny, yet so powerful. I felt that I was Everything and that the world would never end. I had all I ever wanted right here, right now. I smiled all over.

Guru

I was going to go shopping but I decided to see a guru instead. It all came about in an unexpected way. I'd just sat down in a little cafe to have some lunch. It was quite busy, so when a young man in his twenties came in and looked for a seat he found there weren't any spare tables. As I was at a table on my own, he asked if he could sit at  my table. I was hesitant, as I'd walked for miles that  morning and was hot, tired and not really in the mood for conversation, but I said yes.

It soon became apparent that I didn't have a choice. After asking the usual questions about where I was from and how long I would be in India, the conversation took a more unusual turn. The man, who introduced himself as Khan, was chatty and friendly and his English was very good, so we were able to talk freely. I relaxed a little and started to ask him some questions.

He was a student who'd just finished his accountancy studies. When I asked if he'd found a job yet he replied, 'No, not yet. I just finished a short film-making course.' Intriguing. This was something different, something unexpected and something warranting more questions.

'What kind of films would you like to make?' I aked.
'Documentaries.'
'Do you have a subject in mind?'
Yes, I'd like to do something on gigolos.'
Ok, this was not the answer I was expecting. I asked him to explain more.
'In India, in Jaisalmeer, sometimes foreign women pay good-looking Indian men to spend time with them. Sometimes it's just company, dinner and drinks, sometimes it's sex too. Just a bit of fun. What do you, as a foreigner, think of that?'
I hesitated.
'Well,' I said, choosing my words carefully, as I formed an opinion on something I'd only just heard about, 'I wouldn't do it myself, but I wouldn't judge people who did it, as long as they both knew the situation.'

'That's good. I also want to make the film from the gigolos' point of view too,' he said. 'Why they do it and what they think about it. India is full of interesting people like that if you look below the surface.'
I had to agree: I'd had several encounters with them and this seemed to be turning into another one. But Khan had moved on.

'There's a very interesting man here in Jaipur. He's a guru and he's amazing! He'll tell you all sorts of things about you that you've never told anyone else before. When I went to see him, I cried.'
'Why?' I asked, surprised at such openness from a stranger and an Indian lad in his twenties, at that.
'I have some problems,' he said vaguely, 'and I'd never told anyone about them. As soon as he saw me he told me what my problems were. I couldn't believe it, so I cried.'
'Wow!' I said. 'So what does he do exactly?'
'He heals people with natural methods; homeopathy, stone therapies, yoga, meditation, that kind of thing. You should go and see him, he's amazing. You'll cry. Just tell him your name and he'll tell you all your problems.'

I wasn't sure, as I've always been a devout skeptic of fortune telling, New Age therapies and the like. I believe - as many people do - that, to some extent, a vulnerable mind believes what it wants to hear, so when it is told that it suffers from an issue that probably affects most people, e.g. fear of failure, it recognises that as its own personal, private problem.

However, I listened, while he talked on in such an animated way about how fantastic this guru was and how popular he was in the West and how he had many followers in Europe and America.

'He lives in Jaipur. You could go and see him today. He's probably not busy now, as it's Sunday. He doesn't charge for his services, as he's writing a book.' I didn't really see what that had to do with it, but I let it pass.

I had several hours which I'd planned to kill with an overkill of shopping, but this sounded too intriguing. So gradually I found myself thinking, they saying out loud, 'Ok, why not?

'Great. I'll get a rickshaw driver to take you there and wait for you. And I'll just call Guru now, to see if he's free.' At which, he took out his mobile, made an extremely brief call of about five seconds and hung up.

'He'll be free in about 15 minutes,' he confirmed.
"Ok, that's perfect.'

I was beginning to get a tiny bit excited at the prospect. My own guru session, just for me! What would he do? What would he tell me? And, more to the point, would I want to hear and believe it?

'He lives quite near the factory shops too,' Khan continued, 'so you can have a look at those too, while you're there.'

That was the moment when big, silver, clanging, braying, hollering alarm bells should have rung. But, this being me: ever-trusting, ever the hope-over-experience kind of girl I told them to be quiet.

Outside, Khan quickly hailed an auto-rickshaw and with a quick jabber in Hindi to the driver, the deal was done.

'I told him where guru lives and he'll take you there, wait for half and hour then bring you back. I have to go, as I'm meeting a friend at the cinema,' he continued.

'Well, thank you for organising this,' I said, genuinely enthusiastically. 'It was lovely to meet you.' I meant it. He was a fascinating person, so unlike anyone I'd met before and I was pleased to have encountered him.

'Good luck,' he said and, with a handshake, he was gone.

As the auto jarred over the rutted and pitted roads, bearing me inexorably closer to Guru, I was slightly jolted to my senses and began to doubt my judgment. I didn't know either of these men or where the rickshaw was taking me. I could almost hear Aleks' voice in my head cautioning wisely, 'Be careful, Baby, and take care of yourself.'

Anything could happen - but to me, that was precisely the point. This was an opportunity that had presented itself to me unbidden, over a plate of curry and it was mine to either seize or dismiss. I'd chosen to seize it.

As the shops and bazaars gave way to residential housing and hazardously supine cows in the middle of the road, I reasoned that if it was all a scam, I could just go back to the city centre and it would all have cost me no more than the rickshaw fare. And if it proved to be true... untold possibilities awaited me.

After 20 minutes or so, the driver told me we were there and pulled up - outside a jewellery store! I felt sick.

'Guru?' I asked helplessly.
'Guru inside.' He motioned to the shop.
'Really?' I asked, unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

I went in anyway. May as well go through with it. It seemed they were expecting me.
'Guru in the office,' one man said, as if this were a perfectly normal place to store a guru.

I felt utterly foolish, utterly duped - again! Flushed with shame and anger I went into Guru's office. The room was lined with display cases full of jewellery and precious stones and behind a desk, also a display cabinet, seated on an office chair was Guru, in none of his glory.

He looked about 40 with a luxuriant glossy black moustache and thick black hair. His cheeks had an unusual spiritual flush. I looked closer and decided that he was, in fact, wearing blusher. He was dressed in a neat sky-blue shirt and black trousers.

He tilted his head slightly to one side and smiled a tight-lipped, patronising smile. My anger burned hotter and my cheeks did not need the benefit of cosmetics, hot-flushed as they were.

'Sit down.' He motioned to a chair on the other side of the cabinet. 'Why are you here?' he asked in a silky smooth challenge.

'Um, well, someone told me you were a very interesting person and that I should come and see you, so I did,' I muttered, feeling ridiculous.

'That's the trouble,' - patronising smile, 'you didn't come because you know of my work,' - patronising smile. 'Let me just say one thing: you are emotionally blocked. You need to relax more.'

"F--- you!" I thought, "You're a fine one to talk. I'm not the one wearing blusher." I didn't say this.

'You've been in a relationship for three-and-a-half years,' he stated. I didn't have the heart to correct him that it was only two-and-a-half, so I said, 'Yes, I have.'
'What do you want to know?' I realised he was expecting me to lead this discussion, not perform for me the magic trick of knowing it all already.

'I can see you're uncomfortable. If you're skeptical, I'd like to talk to you,' - patronising smile. 'If you're not, I'd like to help you, but you have to relax,' - patronising smile.
'Well,' I blurted,' I'm just suspicious that a guru who deals in stone therapy happens to be in a shop selling stones and jewels.'
'I haven't tried to sell you anything,' he said sharply.
"Bloody hell!" I thought. "I've only been here 10 seconds. I'm sure you'll get round to it."
'You have to understand that, as a tourist, tricks are always being played on me to get me to buy something, so that's why I'm suspicious.'
'This is my family's business, which is why I'm here.' Again that infuriating, tight-lipped, I'm-being-very-understanding-to-you smile and head cocked to one side. I wanted to wipe his girlie blusher off with my bare fist!

Now I'd heard enough! Of course it was a family business. They all are. Kahn, probably his son/nephew, had come across me by chance and taken the opportunity to catch me unawares. Well, all credit to him, he'd done it. That briefest of brief phone calls was probably to Uncle Guru to say, 'I've got a good one for you here. She'll be with you in 20 minutes.'

'I don't feel comfortable here, so I think I'll go,' I said. And with that, I picked up my things and left. In desperation he called after me, 'All I can say is your crown chakra is strong, as you go by intuition, but you are emotionally blocked. Working with orphans or old people would help you.' I nearly laughed in his face!

The rickshaw driver was most bewildered by my early appearance and his comment fully confirmed my stupidity: 'No visit factory shops?' That had obviously been the plan all along. 'No, just take me back to the city,' I said curtly.

On the way back, with hot tears of shame and pride stinging my eyes, I thought of Businessman. I suppose I could be thankful that this episode had given me another chance to master my pride and anger and accept my actions. The sad thing is that the more often this happens to me - and I expect it will again - the less I trust everyone I meet; the very people I came to get to know.

Yes I am gullible, yes, I am foolish - in fact I have invented a new word for myself, 'gullnerable' - but I would rather be that person than one who rejects every opportunity due to suspicion, doubt and fear. I don't want to be closed, so I will have to sharpen up quick or accept the consequences.

I still had time to go shopping so, to console myself, I bought a beautiful silver filgree lamp that, when packed, created a box almost two feet long, by a foot wide. Now, like Diogenes of Sinope, I am forced to carry the sodding thing around with me, still searching for the Truth, which I did not find from my guru.

Pile it high

Indians love a good pile. Wherever you go, whatever they're selling, it will invariably be heaped in profusion and confusion all around them. They have taken piling to a new level - to an art form.

In markets, plum tomatoes are precisely laid out in neat concentric circles, one on top of the other to form great towers of produce so tempting you are loathe the buy anything, as this would spoil the symmetry. The humble carrot takes on a whole new beauty when placed tapered ends together to form a vibrant orange wheel in a wicker basket. Balancing veg on veg becomes an obsession, as a perfectly conical heap of green beans is topped off by the final pod, added precariously to the summit.

Clothes sellers do it too. By the side of the road one day, I noticed a little clutch of people gathered round something on the ground. I wandered over to see what it was. There, in the dust and discarded banana skins and plastic bags was an old man selling trainers, just trainers. All jumbled together, his prospective customers had to hunt through the pile to find a matching pair. He and they didn't seem to mind. Perhaps it added to the thrilled and fostered the belief that you may be getting a bargain.

Spice merchants line their stores with open sacks of glowing gold turmeric, ochre chilli powder and dull back peppercorns, all in perfectly heaped cones. When a customer buys, the merchant uses his little scoop to mine deep into the fragrant mound and once they've gone, he hastily rebuilds his tower, lest others think any less of him for having a dent in his dome.

Even the good old tourist shops are prone to the pile. In Amritsar, I went into a textile shop looking for a specific thing: a piece of fabric - any fabric - in that luminous saffron shade of the Sikh turbans and headscarves I'd seen. The owner had every textile, colour and pattern known to man, all in individual plastic wrappers, neatly stacked one on top of the other. The shop was lined on all sides with them, floor to ceiling.

I couldn't see what I was after immediately, so I asked him if he had it. And this is the amazing bit: despite his immense stock, he went straight to specific stacks and, lifting any on top all together, with a deft tug he extracted the packet he was after. He knew exactly where everything was.

Darting all over the shop, he produced pack after pack that barely fitted my description - neon orange, terracotta, red/yellow tie dye, and eventually saffron - all without toppling a single stack.

It seems to be a selling point to buy it in and pile it high. It's all about choice. If you go into a shop, seeing that there are only 20 different styles of shoes on sale, they think you will think their stock is limited. Whereas if you cram every available surface with all you own, the customer cannot but think that you MUST have what he is looking for, if only you can locate it. For the Indian salesman the pile is pride, the mound is money, the heap is happiness.

Footing the bill

When everyone you meet is trying to sell you something (while insisting they're not), follows you and won't let go until you shout at them or ignore them, sometimes you need to take a break for your sanity. Even ignoring people is tiring, as is the cycle of getting into what seems an innocent chat, only to have your hopes dashed when the wheedling starts. There comes a moment when you can't deal with it anymore.This moment arrived for me in Varanasi.

As I had half a day to kill, I decided to ignore the town and head to a nearby hotel for a massage and pedicure. The spa was beautiful - as modern and clean as any in England. However, not all aspects were similar. The notion of privacy and personal space has yet to be fully embraced by India so, as I undressed for my massage, the masseuse just stood there watching me. I'd seen women publicly bathing in the Ganges just the day before so I knew that, as an Indian, she was comfortable with the situation, and that any discomfort was on my side, so I carried on unabashed. Once I was lying down, she walked out of the room to get something, leaving the door wide open for all to see, as I lay face down naked from the waist up.

I'd asked for a firm massage and that is certainly what I got. My masseuse must have been in her late 40s and she told me she'd been doing this for 15 years. She had the strength in her hands to prove it. It was just what I needed. A very motherly-looking figure, she had a warm, round face and a warm, round tummy to match. I was puzzled to see her tying an apron over her uniform, but I was soon to find out why. At one point she was working on my spine, standing in a position above my head.

Masseuses in the UK always retain a respectful distance. Not so here. As her slightly-too-short arms ran down my spine, my head became embedded in her soft belly. It was like being smothered in a warm, squidgy cushion. Again and again my head disappeared into her rolls of fat as she worked up and down my spine. She didn't seem to mind the inconvenience of her bulk so neither did I. Her tummy was rather comforting, almost like a big motherly cuddle! If her arms were too short and my body was too long, then we'd both just have to make the best of it.

Once my massage was over, it was time for my pedicure. I thought this would be done in a little private room too, but I was wrong. As I'd come into the spa's reception, I'd failed to notice a couple of floor-mounted basins, complete with taps and a wheelie office chair. This was to be the location for my very public pedicure.

As the same lady filled the basin and assembled the instruments she'd need, I sat meekly in my office chair, while she kept up a non-stop conversation in Hindi with the girl on reception, who was amusing herself playing patience on the computer. As they chatted away happily, totally ignoring my presence, two maintenance men sauntered in. I thought they would be shooed out by the ladies to give me some privacy, but no, they looked on with mild interest and joined in the conversation. There I sat, feet in a bowl of hot, soapy water trying to soak away the grime of Varanasi, while my therapist and 3-strong audience carried on as if I wasn't there. I have never felt so insignificant, yet also strangely, so relaxed. The therapist was doing her job as she should, but otherwise my presence and situation didn't register with them. This was all very liberating. Small-talk during a beauty treatment can be excruciatingly dull and I was spared this torment by being ignored.

Meanwhile my therapist got on with my pedicure. Her motherly appearance was matched by her no-nonsense approach. She hauled each foot out in turn, peering through little rectangular glasses balanced on the end of her nose with a look of serious concentration. I felt like her grubby child, to whom she was administering a jolly good, long-overdue scrubbing.

This was confirmed when she announced, 'Very long cuticle. Long time no pedicure.'
'Er, yes,' I laughed meekly. I felt she did not approve.

To reduce my exceedingly long cuticles she used a small metal instrument to scrape them back, before trimming them off. Now when I say scrape, I mean scrape. Putting all her considerable force behind the blade, she ground away at the base of my nails with grim determination.

When satisfied that my cuticles were now of a socially acceptable length, she tackled my dead skin.What a disappointment I must have been to her! She took out a tool that can only be described as a fine Parmesan cheese grater and, with one of my feet clamped firmly in one hand, she set about it with the grater.

'Very lot dead skin,' she admonished, after a pretty severe bout of grating. I nodded in shame. If I could have read her thoughts they would have said, 'I'm not angry, I'm disappointed.' Clearly she expected more refinement from my namby-pamby Western feet.

Next it was time for a foot scrub to refine the work of the cheese grater. She clearly thought this stage would require a bit more application of pressure than normal, so she wheeled her chair round to the other side and, with my leg wedged in her armpit, she ground in the granules with grim determination. By the time she'd finished a light sheen of sweat misted her brow. As my feet got better, my guilt got worse. This poor lady had definitely had to use all 15 years' experience to scrape, snip and buff my feet into an acceptable state. Thankfully, once the final coat of nail polish had dried, she did look quite satisfied.

'Is feel soft?' It was more of a challenge than a question. And yes, they did, so I said so. She smiled at long last. I only hope the tip I gave her was enough to compensate her for her labours.

A big white elephant

I'll whisper it in case anyone from India Tourism is listening: Am I allowed to say that I was disappointed with the Taj Mahal? Because I have a feeling it may actually be illegal to dislike India's most famous monument. And I do feel guilty saying so, as if I have committed an unspeakable crime.

The thing is, I've seen so many photos of it that I already know what it looks like and, well... it looks like the pictures. OK, perhaps I'm over-dramatising a bit. It is a truly beautiful building and its marble has a translucence that is really quite ethereal; the elegance and simplicity of its symmetry is a marvel; the designs and carvings are masterful; and the whole is incredible in its allure, so I'm having to think hard to explain what I didn't like about it.

I think it was more the 'experience' that failed to live up to expectations. Why? Mainly because of the people. Oh my God, the people! Tourists (like me, yes, I admit it) everywhere. Like beastly black ants swarming all over a pristine ice cream cone. They talked, they shouted, the took ridiculous pictures of themselves with the Taj appearing to be in the palm of their hand. They even queued to take photos of themselves sitting on the most photogenically located benches in the garden. In short, they spoiled it. A lot of them seemed more interested in taking photos of the place than actually enjoying the real live building they'd come miles to see.

Maybe it's me, maybe my mind is historically unsophisticated and I'm unable to conceive what the Taj must have been like when it was first built, because I'm distracted by the braying hoardes. Whatever the case, they annoyed me more than I thought it was possible to be annoyed.

Tourists aside, India is its own worst enemy when it comes to seeing the Taj in its best light, simply because you can't. The air pollution is so bad that, from the main entrance, the main building looks all smudgy and grey, as though in a fog, but when you get close to it and look back, the gatehouse is now the smudgy one. The pollution means you can't fully appreciate its beauty from a distance, as intended. The early morning sun, which should give the palace a delicate youthful glow, couldn't even break through the murk on the day I saw it. All those early-risers - me included - had no chance to take photos of it at its best, as there was no real sunrise. How can you love the world's most photographed building when you can't get a good photo of it?

But my disappointment was more than the sum of those two parts. Maybe the Taj is just too grand, just too perfect to be lovable. Like that too-beautiful model in a magazine, it provokes awe certainly and envy, yes, but it's missing something. There's no soul, no character. Even though we know it is a monument to a supposedly monumental love, this doesn't of itself imbue it with anything to love.

To me, it was cool and distant. Everything about it was designed to be perfect, from the symmetry of form to the exquisite materials used and craftsmen employed. It has no 'wonky nose' to find endearing, no 'beauty spot' to temper its beauty.

'Love is never truly blind; it sees the faults but it doesn't mind.' I want to see the faults, otherwise I may as well look at a picture. After all, I've seen it all before...