Manny says, "It's all everyone said it would be… and more."

True. I am sitting in a small room the size of my bathroom at home, in front of a keyboard which has been used by too many hands, which has typed too many words, and which seems to forget every now and then how to type certain characters. You will notice that the letter "C" demands a certain emphasis, which I am not always keen to give it. There is a smell of incense coming in through the door — the owners of this internet cafe praying to the four directions, and the first scent to override the heavy perfume of diesel which follows the busses and the taxis, the cars and autorickshaws, the motorcycles and motorscooters down the road in a vast, all consuming cloud. Through the loud, there is an incessant sounding of horns, as everyone tells everyone to get out of everyone's way.

There is the dust and the broken sidewalk. There is the rickshaw driver who keeps swooping around the block to dive at us again, a hungry bird after a little, tasty, western morsel. There is the cab driver who will take us to our next destination for 10 times the correct fare.

That is the surface, of course.

Manny and I arrived after an uneventful if extended flight, two nights sleeping from Boston to London, then London to Bangalore. The plane set down at 5 am local time on the day after Diwali, the Festival of Lights, and the day before the end of Ramadan. The city seems to have been cleared just to welcome us with its most docile face.

Our lodging at the Ballal Hotel — apparently built is some greater day, yet still retaining some silhouette flourish of that past — is simple and quiet, set back from the busy Residency Road. We arranged a room, and blearily lay down for while to collect ourselves.

There are two ways to arrive in another world: to collapse into it and sleep until you wake, then to carefully edge out into the current of lives — the rushing river of lives! — Or to invite your strength to return, clear the body and the mind, and go to meet what is new with eyes and arms wide open. We had our first yoga practice to begin the day, in between the chairs of the hotel room, then sat in meditation to draw all of that good attention into the heart.

Then we were ready to go out and greet India!

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