The great red sandstone forts at Delhi and Agra both lie on the banks of the River Yamuna. At Agra, the riverside battlements offer a splendid vista across the huge waters winding among the blank sandy banks to the distant Taj Mahal. In the Red Fort at Delhi, you are hardly aware the river is there. From place to place India's attitude to water varies so.
Its availability seems to be taken for granted. Which is strange in a nation which receives little rain outside the monsoon. Perhaps the government has been particularly efficient in digging wells. In the countryside, irrigated fields are ablaze with a rich, dark verdancy. In the towns, public gardens are watered endlessly. Especially in Delhi, where the extensive lawns around India Gate and Parliament building are maintained as lushly as any Home Counties gardener could wish. And in the old part of the town, people who live on the streets take turns to bathe at their local standpipe, holding a cloth around themselves like coy holidaymakers changing on a Cornish beach. As they wash themselves in the running water, they make no effort to be frugal. Perhaps such profligacy with free water is the one luxury they can afford.
Rivers have helped shape much of the sub-continent: the Indus gave the land its name, and the Ganges remains a holy symbol. But it is the lakes that are special in India, partly because of their rarity. One of the main attractions of other-worldly Kashmir is its dreaming lakes, typified by Srinagar's Dal Lake. The contrast between the flat dull land of the Indian plains, and this mobile film of water mirroring the encircling mountains and the soft blue of the sky could hardly be greater.
The tranquillity that water engenders has even moved some to create new lakes. The Pichola Lake at Udaipur is a masterpiece of this kind. In its present form, the lake now reaches out to the surrounding soft-contoured hills, like Lake Dal on a more intimate scale. It provides the perfect setting for the palace which occupies Jagniwas island. And its example spurred others to create Lake Fateh Sagar behind it, whose waters answer the complex of lake and reflected land with a further reflection of the whole design like some huge artifice of mirrors.
But the grand ensemble of Udaipur is an exception; Indian architects have mostly been content to use water as a just another decorative element, like an occasional semi-precious stone set as an inlay among the main expanse of marble. For example, the deserted palace at Fatehpur Sikri has a number of small pools with decorative bridges. But water here is no more central to the overall design than the courtyard-sized chessboard nearby, or the small palace built for games of hide-and-seek. For real architectural sensitivity to the magic of water, you must travel to Agra.
The Itmad-ud-Daulah is a modest tomb for the grandfather of the Lady of the Taj. A narrow pool leads the eye naturally to the exquisite pietra dura of the mausoleum, as delicate as lace. The Taj Mahal takes the same idea but realises it on the grandest scale. The long watercourse points like a gleaming arrow to the distant tomb. A marble wraith, it stands silhouetted against the sky, brooding over the slow, silent Yamuna below.
A Partial India A to Z
For millennia, India has been susceptible to outside influences. First the Greeks, then the Moghuls, the Portuguese and finally the British have all left their distinctive stamp upon various aspects of the country and its life. Perhaps it was a question of politics: the lack of unity among the fragmented Indian states - which were often either squabbling or else sealed off completely - always made them easy prey for invaders. Whatever the reasons, the Indians retain to this day an honest curiosity and openness towards foreigners. And to none more so than to the British.
In part this can be attributed to, hazy nostalgic memories of the Raj. Most Indians have been touched by the British Empire, either directly or through their parents. Even more seem to retain a fond affection for the race, despite the past imperialism, and despite the patronising acts of political clumsiness which British ministers continue to wreak on them. Although the British can be blamed only too easily for the massacres which followed partition, they might also be praised for limiting religious friction so adroitly in the century before. Perhaps it is this, in part, which people recall. In an uncertain world, nothing is treasured so much as the memory of stability.
Attitudes to the British are complicated by the widespread use of English as the language of intellectual debate, of commerce, and of national politics. The very act of speaking English is so freighted with cultural baggage that Indians are almost inevitably impressed when a Briton talks. Particularly since, rightly or wrongly, British English stands as the yardstick of correctness. Any utterance, be it never so banal, strikes the Indian with all the force of wisdom engraved on stone.
But this goodwill is so widespread, and passes so far beyond cynical deference to affluent tourists, that a deeper cause than history or linguistics must be sought. It is not hard to find. Watch Indians dealing with Indians. In the interminable queues, neither the clerk nor the queuer ever seem to lose their placidity; both accept that neither is to blame for delays and problems, and that both are victims. Travel amidst the madness of Delhi's rush hour as rickshaws and bicycles swoop across on-coming traffic: horns are blown continually, but there is rarely any real ill-feeling. Everyone, everywhere, preserves their equanimity.
It is tempting to ascribe this to some profound Hindu passivity, or to the effects of centuries of downtrodden serfdom bleaching out any spark of resistance or protest. The real reason is surely much simpler: the Indians enjoy a natural and deep-dyed good humour. Being pleasant in daily life is one manifestation of it; liking foreigners another.
This makes staying in India a joy. As well as the constant unofficial welcome which is pressed on the visitor, even the hotels manage to convey something of the same spirit. At the best of them - like the Imperial in Delhi - service is raised to something akin to customer beatification. Whether amidst elegant surroundings of old Raj splendour, or enjoying the simple hospitality of a Kashmiri home, the question of who likes whom the more - guest or host - becomes totally and blissfully academic.
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In the towns, in the fields, by the river, on the bustling streets and deserted mountain roads - everywhere in India, there are people constantly at work. It is as if they were intent on offering their own symbolic tableaux of daily life on the sub-continent. Look, they seem to say, existence is just such an unending struggle. Much of India's success in combating problems of poverty and underdevelopment can probably be attributed to this countrywide mobilisation of its workforce.
Yet there is something very odd about work in India. It is true that large numbers of people sitting or standing around idly are rare. But this has been achieved not so much by boosting the total amount of work which needs to be done - as western job creation schemes try to do – but by sharing out what work there is among the whole population. The result is a dilution of activity which affects every sphere of Indian life.
For the visitor, Indian bureaucracy is one of the most striking examples of this built-in redundancy. Most of the work in offices seems to be filling out forms which are then passed on internally before being filed for ever. And everything is in triplicate to employ three times the clerks. Each Job becomes a matter of taking great pains over an essentially trivial and inefficient task.
The same principle of division of labour applies to the shops in towns. Department stores are unknown, even in Delhi and the larger cities of the north. The fragmentation of the pattern of working is manifest in the myriad small shops and stalls of each trade. Throughout a city there may be many tens or even hundreds of these, all selling the same goods.
Along with this reduced scale of endeavour, there goes a corresponding refinement of services. India represents the ultimate in niche markets. In each town there is someone offering every specialised service imaginable. By the side of the road people sell glasses of water; mend bicycle punctures; offer a few lemons or second-hand torches. The constant division of labour down to this almost vanishingly small scale seems possible only because the basic subsistence level is itself so low. Selling something like an apple or two a day is all it takes to live.
Purely manual labour obeys similar laws; everything operates at the level of the smallest physical act. In the country, women and children sift endlessly through fields, tending the land manually. In the towns, public gardens are weeded one plant at a time; grass is watered inch by inch; even gravel roads seem to be laid down stone by stone.
The acme of this dogged, timeless approach is to be found along the only route into Kashmir, a road which clings precariously to the sides of mountain after mountain. Tens of thousands of low stone walls in the form of squat rectangular blocks lie along its outer edge as a safety barrier. The road is in the middle of nowhere; and yet all along its length, as if by some ancient magic, there are the solitary workers, diligently and patiently re-painting the ends and sides of each of the stone blocks white. An eternal and totally characteristic task.
A Partial India A to Z
The Kashmir railhead lies at Jammu, some 600 km and 15 hours by train from Delhi. The journey along the only road from Jammu to Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, takes another 12 hours. Two thirds of that is uphill.
As the road winds its way round mountain after mountain, leaving the narrow valley floors further and further behind, the landscape gradually changes. Trees give way to low shrubs, then barren scrubland. With each hairpin twist of the snaking road, the landscape to the south folds itself, pleating the horizon with soft-contoured hills. The road peaks at 3000 metres, then begins a partial descent.
The dusty valleys are exchanged for a deep gorge: below lies the huge River Cherab. From this height, its surface is deceptively still and jade-like. The conjunction of placid glistening water with ranks of mountains shouldering each other into the distance looks like nothing so much as the Lake District - writ five times larger.
As the road follows the Cherab upstream, the gorge gives way to a narrow valley, with fertile land edging the river. Small villages are visible among the neatly-parcelled fields with their low mud walls. To conserve valuable space, some houses hug sheer rock faces shrouded in shadow like a colony of bats. Thin, sill-like terraces are carved into the steep concave bowl of the mountainside to eke out the arable land yet further.
The road turns off, following a tributary; its valley rises and narrows to nothing. The land begins to spread out before the final wall of mountain tops. The Jawarhar tunnel under them is long, dark and damp - a last rite of passage before entering the light and spacious Vale of Kashmir itself. As you emerge from the tunnel, and turn a couple of corners, the whole valley is spread out before you with the clarity of a map.
It is ringed by majestic mountain peaks which block out the world. To the west is Afghanistan, to the north Uzbekistan, and to the east, the Himalayas. The Vale itself lies at over 1500m, and is about 100 km long by 20 km wide. It is flat and abundantly fertile.
To understand and appreciate Kashmir, its position as an impossible kingdom must be grasped. This is best done by arriving slowly overland. As each metre in height and kilometre in distance is dearly won, and each hour paid out in the journey, so the true co-ordinates of Kashmir are fixed within you.
In contrast, departure should be a swift and effortless escape that allows the essence of the Vale to carried away intact. A flight is ideal. As you rise out of Srinagar airport, the valley contracts to a giant's footprint. Like the old land it is, creases run over its smooth surface. To the north, the great snow-capped peak of Nanga Parbat gleams like a fang; to the east, the Himalayas lie like hundreds of huge, jagged flints. Set amidst this frozen sea of raging peaks, the calm and peace of the Kashmir valley is all the more miraculous. It can be no coincidence that an anagram of Srinagar is Sangri-ra.
A Partial India A to Z
To do anything in India, you have to queue. Several times. For example, to get a rail ticket to Kashmir, you queue at the ticket reservation office; who tell you that you need a special permit from the Ministry of Home Affairs, several miles away. So you queue at the door there, in order to get a security pass to be able to queue upstairs for a form, which is then processed once you have queued at another door. At that point, you can return to the reservation office and queue for your ticket.
Everywhere you go, there are Indians patiently queuing. They rarely push, and are almost invariably good-humoured however long their wait. The same goes for the clerks who, slowly but inexorably, deal with the queues. The British might like to think this deep-seated respect for queuing is part of the legacy of the Raj, just like cricket. But unlike sports which seem to transfer readily enough between races, the phenomenon of queuing is too firmly rooted in the Indian character to be explained away so easily.
Queuing in India is intimately bound up with, though not totally caused by, that country's love of endless, intricate bureaucracy. Every stage of every transaction is noted, registered, approved. There are special forms for each stage, many of which require other forms, duly completed. Forms often require queuing.
This is partly a reflection of an almost Victorian state of organisation within Indian society. Although computers are beginning to appear, notably in booking airline seats and banking, the systems elsewhere are manual and the main medium is hand-written paper. It is a universal rule that paper begets paper, both in the form of multiple copies and as records of other records; yet there is a level of redundancy in India which goes beyond any normal wastage. The Indian nation does not just connive at bureaucracy on this scale, it seems positively to welcome it.
An obvious universal benefit of functional redundancy of this kind is the creation of much-valued jobs: it takes five people to do what only really needs one. But beyond this, there is a deeper psychological reason why queuing and bureaucracy are so central to the Indian way of life.
To queue is not only to recognise an order, it is to affirm it. If you queue, you suffer the inconvenience of waiting; but while the queue lasts you know that by waiting long enough, you will be attended to. Without queuing - that is, in an anarchic world - there is no such guarantee. If you are strong, you may push your way to the front; but with 750 million people out here, you will have to be very strong. Better to queue.
The very size of India's fragile society imposes an even greater need for order. Queuing and bureaucracy are a kind of microscopic order which everyone can contribute to. The theory is, if you acquiesce and aid at this level, society will pay you back by exhibiting a similar degree of control on a larger scale. It seems to work. Maintaining the world's largest democracy - especially one created so recently and in a relatively artificial way - is a considerable feat. Having to queue, then sign in triplicate, is a small price to pay for freedom.
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From the air, the flat Indian landscape looks like a huge dusty carpet. The monotonously regular fields form a huge patchwork where each square is a variation on the fundamental hue. Tan, dun, tawny, beige; fawn, bronze, khaki; bistre, sienna, umber, ochre: India exhausts them all in the infinite varieties of dull brown its earth assumes.
Nor does the sky offer any relief to this pitiless landscape. During the long summer it is an unbroken dome the colour of faded blue Wedgwood. There are no swirling cloudscapes to captivate the eye, no gradations of mist and vapour to provide variety. Apart from the occasional bird of prey wheeling in the sky, there is not a single breath or movement to break the mutual stare of the earth and heavens.
To this bleached-out brown and burnt-out blue is added a third element which seems another product born of the sun's furnace. The rocks of northern India, and hence the great forts built from them, glow with a dull hot redness which wearies the view like the land and the sky. To visit the empty palace of Fatehpur Sikri is to enter an oven for the eye as the stone throbs redly around you. Only the lush green grass of the abandoned courtyards provides any respite or offers any balm.
Perhaps as a defence against this stultifyingly narrow natural palette, the Indians love bright and varied colours. The saris ot the women are a blaze of impossible shades; the more they clash, the better. The moped rickshaws are often gaily painted with intertwined flowers and coloured patterns. And the cheap pictures of Krishna, the Indianised Christs, the saccharine-sweet images of chubby children - all are tricked out in the most garish and cloying combination of hues. Likewise the huge cinema hoardings everywhere, which seem to promise plots just as colourful and as unfettered by the constraints of subtlety.
The Kashmir valley is less afflicted by the sense of monochrome found on the plains. Partly this reflects the fact that it is the expansiveness of the colour which makes the brown plain or blue sky so exhausting, The essence of Kashmir is that the scale has been reduced and humanised. The valley is only a few tens of kilometres long, and even the sky's extent is bounded by the mountain peaks which rear up on all sides.
It is not only the fields which spawn brown: the Kashmiri houses, with their timber frames and mud-coloured bricks, contribute as well. And yet though the colour may permeate the region, it does not overwhelm. The landscape is saved by the trees, which stand like great fountains and torches of colour. Unlike those on the plain, they are deciduous. As a result, their myriad autumnal hues echo, extend and finally redeem the surrounding countryside. The gamut of scarlets, vermilions, russets and golds justify their staider setting.
Ultimately, the difference is that Kashmir's hues are those of an English landscape; with the trees in their full dismantling glory, it is easy to relate to the ensemble. The ochres of the plain are alien. They make no concessions to previous experience. They are the true colour of India.
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Night transforms India. By day, the land bakes under a dusty pitiless sun, and the cities are a constantly jarring clash of opposing sights and sounds. Darkness descends like some ancient balm poured over the sores and wounds of the day. The heat is moderated; the air becomes Zephyrous, neither hot nor cold. The harsh contrasts of the streets mellow and mingle as the shadows lengthen, reach out and coalesce. Most importantly, the mad frenetic din, the horns and the trucks and the banshee shouts, all is tamed and harmonised into the soft equable noise of human babble.
Delhi in particular is magical by night. Without the harsh light, the city's constant and overpowering sense of distances is lost. The weak electric bulbs in the shops cast small circles of illumination which further reduce the scale. Only Connaught Place retains a sense of wide open space.
But even that is tamed. What by day is a huge bowl of empty sky becomes at night a hall whose roof is hung with velvet drapes. Around its inner circle, the shops which hung back diffidently in the deep shadows of the colonnade are now glistening like tiny candles on a grand iced cake. Across their lights, twin currents of people swirl in opposite directions, spilling out onto the almost deserted road.
The outer circle is even more animated. Hundreds of tiny shops have burst into life: one is selling car seat covers, another has typewriters hired out for use there by the hour; another boasts a single small photocopying machine; many others sell brightly coloured cloths or provisions or one of the many monochrome cooked dishes. Laid out on the street are second-hand books or some of the multitude of indigenous and foreign magazines. It is one of the great Joys of India that neither here, amidst the huge throngs of bustling shoppers, nor in the quiet roads radiating out from Connaught Place, or indeed in any of the other cities of the north-west, do you ever feel threatened. The night in India is totally benevolent.
That same carefree sense of certain safety exists in Kashmir. More so perhaps among this happy and graceful people. But the night itself has a very different quality, and none of the plain's enveloping sense of a warm, almost maternal embrace.
The Kashmiri night is stern. During the day, the sunshine streaks through the thin air with a direct and surprising strength. But the instant that the sun sinks behind the rim of the encircling mountains, it is as if some great brazier had been extinguished, plunging this other-worldly land into the dark and deep cold like a bad wizard's spell in a fairy-tale.
But there are compensations. Not only is the next day's light and heat all the more welcome, but the cold of the valley is of such a clean and bracing kind it is hard to harbour a grudge against it. Besides, it is the occasion of one of Kashmir's richest pleasures: to sit on a houseboat on Dal Lake in Srinagar, the boards creaking around you, as a blazing log fire in the room's stove throws out a wet and almost loving heat, together with the unforgettable odours of gently choking woodsmoke.
A Partial India A to Z
The divided modern states of India and Pakistan were born out of the age-old tensions between Hindu and Muslim. The latter did not relish being a minority in a country ruled by the former. But whatever the political realities, the balance of spiritual power surely lay the other way.
Hinduism does not proselytise: since caste cannot be altered during this life, only by it, nothing can be done for those whose previous lives condemned them to be re-born outside Hinduism, and hence outside all castes. It is a religion of temporal stasis. For the Muslim, on the other hand, there is the siren call of the jihad, the holy war to defend the faith and convert the infidels - against their will if need be. It is the epitome of spiritual dynamism.
The same extroversion is manifest in their religious architecture, faith made stone. Everywhere the Muslims went, they built mosques. Not just one, but several, preferably greater than ever before. Paradise was to be won by action. Hindus often veered the other way, towards the abnegation manifest in Buddhism; you must desire nothing, strive for nothing, do nothing. Which is hardly conducive to piling up ever-higher stones.
And so it is that Hinduism remains a dominant yet invisible religion, while the departed Moghuls have left their indelible stamp on northern India in a string of massive forts and soaring mosques, Together these represent the twin aspects of their warlike faith. Delhi itself has fine examples of both. The Red Fort stands rock-like at the corner of the old city, its huge red walls an unarguable statement of imperial and religious intent. A little across from it is the Jami Masjid, the main mosque of the town. Open to the skies and to Allah, it can hold 25,000 souls and is the largest in India.
Unlike Delhi, which now lies in the Hindu heartlands, Kashmir has remained staunchly Muslim. Geography apart, perhaps this is not surprising. Nowhere else in India does the muezzin's call to prayer carry as distinctly as through that thin mountain air. In Srinagar, the frail reedy cry can be heard for miles as it floats across the still Dal Lake.
Like all the greatest artists, the Moghul architects of the mosques took the circumscribing restrictions of their faith regarding ornamentation and form and made it the springboard for inspiration. Particularly in their intimate monuments to the dead. The tombs are austere in their geometric patternings, stern and formal in their inlaid quotations from the Koran. Yet their perfect proportions and simplicity are moving for any faith.
Of no building is this more true than of the Taj Mahal. Too often it is regarded simply as beautiful architecture, or as a postcard symbol of India. But as well as a personal testament to the unassuageable grief of the Emperor Shah Jahan at the death of his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, it needs to be understood as a religious monument. To enter, you must remove your shoes as well as your cultural prejudices. It forms a fitting memorial to the Moghuls' enduring passion for architecture, and the apotheosis of their legacy to India.
A Partial India A to Z
Emerging from the Jawarhar tunnel, the road into the Kashmir Valley descends swiftly onto the flat alluvial plain. Srinagar, the capital, lies some 90 km further north. The land is fertile and cultivated, divided up into a patchwork of small fields by low walls. Huge silver birches and broad elm-like trees stand at intervals, decked out in their autumnal Cotswold colours.
The houses and shops in the villages along the way are built sturdily to withstand the heavy snow and ice of the winters. A basic timber frame is filled out with rough dark bricks; the effect is pure Tudor. As dusk falls and the air chills suddenly, fires are lit in the open shops; the red light spills out onto the road, and faces are caught in its glare like figures in some painted tavern scene. The Kashmiris wear long, smock-like panchuls, perfect bucolics in a perfect Dutch landscape,
Srinagar itself is Venice. Its gondolas are the shikaras, which ply Dal Lake. Like gondolas, they can be sleek and graceful, bearing passengers on down cushions amidst velvet curtains and gold tassels; or they can be functional transports, carrying impossible quantities of precariously balanced vegetables to market. Some are little more than punts, which are used in the endless task of carting away the choking bright-green weed their oarsmen tear out from the lake's bed.
Shikaras are the only way to get to the hundreds of houseboats moored on the lake. A typically British solution to a Maharajah's ban on foreigners buying land in Kashmir, they look like long wooden summer houses carried off by floods and mysteriously brought together. Although each is unique in the details of its carving and ornamentation, the basic design remains the same; passing along between ranks of them brings to mind the same diversity in unity found among the palazzi of the Grand Canal.
Venice, like its palaces, is founded on mud. Behind the houseboats lies the mud of Srinagar. Some of these outcrops are used as floating gardens where massive lilies flourish, and vegetables grow lushly. Others have trees and houses, chickens, dogs and children - the Kashmiri equivalent of Venice's Torcello.
The best place to grasp the myriad elements of Srinagar is a shikara in the middle of Dal lake towards the end of the day. At sunrise – which comes late, as the sun must climb over the Himalayas, and fight its way through the morning haze - the lake boils with a low swirling mist which hovers inches above its surface. Shikaras glide like ghosts, and are not of this world. In the heat and stillness of noon, they hang on the lake's mirror like glistening water insects. At the distant water's edge, the perfect lines of shimmering silver birches look like Normandy in September. In front of them, Friesan cows wander along placidly, indifferent to the green double-decker buses which rumble by.
As the sun begins to sink towards Afghanistan, the haze finally clears, and the full circle of mountains can be seen, just as their snow-capped peaks turn soft pink. Srinagar is Venice, set amidst Switzerland.
A Partial India A to Z
The most notable thing about smells in India is that there are so few of them. Westerners pre-conceptions about third-world countries might lead them to expect a rich melange of noisome smells constantly assaulting the nose, just as the hectic collage of sights and sounds will hit the eyes and ears. But there is no equivalent cacophony of odours.
It is certainly possible to find smells, hunting them out like exotic truffles. But the best smells are those which ambush you in unlikely places, striking your consciousness like the sound of a tiny distant bell.
For instance, there is the incense. Not from the temples, of which there are few in northern India, nor from the mosques which are open to the sky and smell only of the what the wind carries. This incense is from the slow-burning sticks found on stalls in the markets everywhere. Its purpose is purely functional: to ward off the flies from the food. But far more than any smell of cooking it remains as the defining smell of the bazaars. Its cloying richness seems particularly appropriate for the huge, sprawling congregation of shouting people, garish colours and endless, fecund confusion.
More elusive is the smell of the old forts and palaces. A rare conjunction of conditions is needed to catch it, just as if it were some marvellous nocturnal bird, seen only by autumn moonlight in leap years. The rooms where it can be found must be dark and secluded from the sun; they must be high yet draughtless; and their peace must be broken by intrusive visitors only rarely. If these three requirements are met, as at the deserted palaces of Fatehpur Sikri, you can catch a whiff of the rarefied exhalation of old stone. It is cold and dank and a very ancient smell, the smell of history.
The third smell is perhaps the hardest to recognise, because it is at once so subtle and so trivial. It is ubiquitous, but easiest to detect towards twilight. A high vantage point helps to spot it. There you can watch it form over the whole city, and colour the air itself.
It is the smoke from domestic fires. Sitting atop a minaret of the Jami Masjid in Delhi, you can see the city wreathed in its mists and vapours. As dusk falls, the smell seems to concentrate itself as the more workaday odours pack up and go home. It is less a smell than a small sensation at the back of the throat, a slight acidity.
The Kashmir valley offers the experience in its purest form. From the high vantage point of the Shankaracharya Hill behind Srinagar, you can watch the rich woodsmoke curl out of the chimneys on the houseboats and houses. As the lower air thickens, the view turns into some crazy industrial landscape, with tall wiry silver birches for smokestacks. Walking back down into the city you lose sight of the thin pall of smoke in the darkening air, but gain, step by step, its gently choking smell. It smells of the fire which awaits you on your houseboat. It smells of home, as it does for everyone in India. Which is why it is so hard for the westerner to detect, and so worth detecting.
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Unowned, gaunt and pale, cows are ubiquitous in India. But for the westerner, it is still something of a shock to find them in bus queues, lying beside busy roundabouts, or moseying serenely through bazaars. Encountering a camel is even worse.
It is perhaps because camels are so strongly associated with the Middle East, that their presence in classically Indian areas like Rajasthan is so disconcerting. Or it could just be that the reality of a camel is deeply disturbing wherever you meet them, The gibe about a camel being a horse designed by a committee credits the latter with too much imagination. No sane group of people could have come up with those huge fragile knees, the humps apparently just stuck on as an afterthought, eyelashes that look like some grotesque parody of a 60s fashion excess, and floppy cloven feet with all the grace and practicality of frayed carpet slippers. Encountering them in their ragged flesh, it is hard to know whether to laugh or cry.
A similar ambivalence must affect Indians. Although camels are quite common in cities like Jaipur, the wagons they pull are perpetually empty. Their chief function seems to be to impede traffic. The fact that not even the usually reckless bus drivers will take them on suggests that camels are held in an even deeper esteem than cows.
Generally speaking, animals occupy a curious position in Indian society. When for so many life is a daily struggle for simple survival, there is clearly no room for the mawkish sentimentality found in countries like Britain, where societies protecting animals are Royal, whereas those protecting children art just National. Yet animals are much more tightly integrated into the fabric of society than in the West.
Practically every religion has a defined position on animals. For Hindus, cows are sacred; for Muslims, pigs are defiling; for Jains, all animal life is worthy of respect. In more mundane ways too, animals are central to the Indian way of life. For example, in most areas, horses, bullocks and camels are crucial to the transportation system. Pigs and wild dogs are often the only form of refuse collection. And for the poorest city-dwellers, the best source of cooking and heating fuel is the free cow-dung found in the road.
For the tourist too, animals play a large part in defining the Indian experience. Like the widespread cows, the urban monkey is a frequent sight, particularly around monuments. Part of the charm of Kashmir, and an element in its otherness, is the presence of great eagles in Srinagar, together with shimmering flights of steel-blue kingfishers, which patrol the surface of Dal lake like tiny jet fighters,
And outside the towns, the blank immensity of land and sky, the sense of heat and dust, the age-old presence and pressure of history - all these are instantly and most memorably evoked by the sight of birds of prey poised high up in the baked sky, wheeling slowly and endlessly over the plain below. Like so much in India, one small element can contain and be contained by a sense of the larger whole.
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