Be It Ever So Humble

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

Well and it does seem rather humble after all the pleasures and palaces through which I have roamed in the last two weeks. In fact I have succumbed to the worst kind of brooding gloom over my work prospects, my house and my self. Maybe I'm gearing up for some kind of big change. Or maybe it's just jet lag. Either way, it's time to post some photos, which I couldn't do on the ultra-slow connections over there, so here goes.


This is a picture of a shelf at a bookstore in Jaipur. Note the titles on the upper left and the lower right. It appears that the books of Mr. Hitler are very popular in areas of India with large Muslim populations. I'm not commenting. I'm just reporting what I was told by the bookseller.



What do you see we all take up a collection and buy the Palace of the Maharajah of Udaipur? There's bound to be room enough in there for all of us.




This is the door to the dwelling of a holy man in a temple in Udaipur.



A couple of my new friends lounging at cocktail hour. Note the pervasive air of langour and indolence.





This is the second hotel we stayed in, and my favorite. The lower picture is the view upward from my bed. When I checked into the room I noted a heavily padlocked double door with wooden carvings of what looked like maidens or goddesses on it. I asked the guy who brought my bags what it was and he just shook his head and waved his hand as if to say: don't ask. The next morning I was sitting in the little patio outside the room reading and one of the staff guys came up and said in rocky and heavily accented English, "Excuse please, may I have keys to your room?" I asked him why and he answered "God. God in your room." When I looked puzzled he kept repeating "God. In your room. God." I figured I couldn't have been hearing him right, but nevertheless giving him the keys seemed to be the only thing to do. We went into the room where he unlocked those double wooden doors to reveal a beautiful shrine, three carved idols and lots of intricate painting on the wall of the alcove. He explained in his rough English that here resided the household god, and every day at 10 A.M. they gave him flowers and lit candles, and that's what they did, they all took off their shoes--as did I--and lit the candles, and scattered the flower petals, and made homage to the household god, and told me how fortunate I was that this was my room. And I certainly was very fortunate to have god in my room.

More to come.