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but at the time she was understandably furious.
    On top of everything else I was dealing with in Agra, health problems made it even more difficult to focus on my academic work. My body was under constant siege. Not long after the trip to Mathura, my stomach began to rumble, then to boil and churn. I quickly learned how to balance myself while squatting over the Indian toilet, how to wash myself with the fingers of my left hand. Cup by cup I emptied the buckets of water that had been set aside for bathing as I hovered over the porcelain hole, five or six times a day, massaging my sore anus. I became a connoisseur of shit, bending down and scrutinizing each gelatinous mess for signs of possible intestinal disorder.
    A few weeks of this sort of thing and my appetite faded, then virtually disappeared. I realized one afternoon that I had been surviving for days on a diet of nothing but Milk Bikis and chai. My throat was raw, my head ached, and some obscure valve in my nose broke, discharging a flow of mucus that would not stop. I purchased several handkerchiefs at the bazaar but eventually gave in and attempted to master the local custom in such matters:
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Step 1: Tip the head forward, making certain that the nostrils are extended well out beyond the legs and feet. This is the tricky part, the part that requires repeated practice.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Step 2: Use the fingers of the right hand to plug first one nostril, then the other, all the while forcefully ejecting wads of snot onto the ground.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Step 3: Once the nose is emptied in this fashion, the fingers may then be wiped clean on any convenient vertical surface.
    I forced myself to eat bananas and yogurt, then rice and lentils. My intestines gradually settled down, and after what seemed an eternity, the cold faded away. I adapted to living with a sort of chronic fatigue punctuated by sporadic episodes of severe diarrhea. These improvements left me time and energy to worry about other sorts of health issues.
    The monsoon in India is a hothouse for every imaginable fungus. Sometime in August, a few months after my arrival in Agra, I began to constantly scratch my armpits. I scraped at the skin behind each knee and discreetly clawed at my inflamed scrotum. Under constant siege by armies of microscopic warriors, I retaliated with every available weapon, smearing myself with Ayurvedic creams and homeopathic ointments, downing pills and capsules for giardia and a host of other infestations. I still remember the first time I had to choke down those immense pink wheels of Flagyl. I studied the warning on the foil package carefully: “Metronidazole has been shown to be carcinogenic in mice and rats. Unnecessary use of the drug should be avoided.”
    Unnecessary use?
    What did it mean that I should be forced to decide between having my guts overrun with worms and poisoning myself with a known carcinogen?
    The circumstances of my new life in India were so novel that it often seemed as if every sensation had become a source of anxiety or, occasionally, of sheer wonder. Perhaps it was simply that I had never before been so conscious of my body, of the curious throbbing of my heart or the rush of blood pulsating through arteries and veins. One afternoon I was quietly studying Hindi grammar, absorbed for a few blissful minutes in the words on the page, when I become aware of the singular pressure of the chair under my thighs, lifting me up, holding me there, ever so gently. The smooth, tubular surface of the pencil thrust itself against my fingers, pushing back, asserting its own will. The virtually inaudible scratch of an ant’stiny feet moving across my papers inserted itself into my awareness with a compelling urgency. I sat absolutely still, listening intently. In all of this, it was as if there were something essential I did not understand, something I perhaps did not want to understand, calling out for my