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away the sins of a lifetime. As a matter of fact if I were to push you down the bank, I would be doing Your Ladyship a great favour.’ I put my hand on hers.
    She extricates her hand. The gold coins on her bracelet jingle. She throws away the stub of her cigarette and digs out a packet of Caporals from her hip-pocket. She hands me the lighter and puts a cigarette in her lips.
    I cup my palms to shelter the flame and take the lighter to her lips. I look up. She looks up. Our eyes meet. Her’s are as blue as the Bay of Bengal under an aquamarine sky. She knows how to use them. I feel their rapier-like stab through my eyes down to my gullet. I lower my gaze. She blows a mouthful of roasted tobacco smoke into my face. ‘Thanks,’ she says taking back her lighter. Her hand again comes to rest on my knee.
    I play with the coins on her bracelet. They bear masculine names: Jim, Freddy, Dennis, Jacques. ‘Boy-friends,’ she explains. She bares her yellowing teeth, cough-laughs and spits phlegm on the other side.
    ‘Rich and of all nationalities,’ I remark holding the gold coin inscribed Ali. She laughs again. ‘Not all rich; I had some made at my own expense. And not of all nations. India is missing. Perhaps I’ll add an Indian this time,’ she says giving me a meaningful leer. She buries her half-smoked Caporal in the sand. ‘I really must have a quick
dekho
at the Tilpat excavations and then this other place Suraj ... Suraj ... and some four letter obscenity.’
    ‘Kund.’
    The obscenity dawns on me. I blush.
    ‘I am an awful tease!’ she says patting me on my beard. She stands up and brushes the sand off her little bottom. ‘Come along,’ she commands hauling me up by the shoulder.
    She is rejuvenated. She strides on ahead. I trudge behind her. I can’t make anything of her. I cannot affix any labels to this diminutive yet strong, sexless yet bawdy woman.
    We see a small cloud of mobile dust over the bushes. It is the jeep with the
shikaris
. No black buck in the jeep. They see us. Lady Hoity-Toity bares her teeth and turns a victorious smile on me. They understand. One fellow clenches his fist, shakes his right arm from its elbow and yells abuse.
    ‘What’s he saying?’ asks Hoity-Toity.
    ‘He’s telling me to go and bugger myself.’
    ‘An Oriental accomplishment, no doubt! One of the yogic postures designed to make the ends meet,’ she says.
    The masterful female leads the way through the palm grove back to the Rolls-Royce beside the temple. A crowd of inquisitive rustics has again collected round the car. They disperse as soon as we arrive. We have coffee. And drive into Tilpat.
    Word has gone around about how the memsahib dealt with the village lad. The state emblem on the car and the liveried flunkies do the rest. The village headman and his cronies welcome us with a mixture of
namaskars, Jai Hinds and salaams
to the memsahibji. Hoity-Toity nods at them. A
charpoy
is laid out. A woman with her face veiled brings a trayful of
chai
in glass tumblers. Hoity-Toity peers into the woman’s veil and makes everyone laugh. She refuses to drink the
chai
but grabs the pipe of a
hookah
from the hand of a peasant and takes a couple of puffs. They clap their hands and laugh like children. Through me they inform her that the excavated sites have been covered over. ‘Have any of you found any strange objects while ploughing or digging foundations for new houses?’ They waggle their heads. ‘No.’
    We take leave of Tilpat. At Badarpur we turn left, go over a railway level crossing and turn left again along a narrow road. We descend through a defile. A peacock scuttles across and takes wing raucously crying
paon, paon
.
    ‘A real live peacock!’ exclaims Hoity-Toity.
    ‘The place is infested with them.’
    ‘And humans! India seems to be infested with human beings.’ She waves towards the buses, scooters, cars and bicycles in the parking lot at Suraj Kund. Picnickers are scattered everywhere. Transistors,