Cirrus@Austlit

'We let the human stream carry us, sensing that all roads would be leading to the divine lake. The mythical image of white temples reflected on mauve water had lured me, but I was now starting to question my presence in Pushkar - one among nine of the holiest Hindu sites of pilgrimage in India. In the late afternoon the main street was dusty and strewn with detritus: plastic bottles, cups and food wrappers crushed into soiled origami beneath the feet of thousands - the overflow from the five-day Camel Fair that had officially concluded in the out-of-town fairground, and to which a sense of carnival had been brought by lingerers like us to expire in the town. A short distance ahead walked our newlyweds, somewhat unwillingly, each hanging onto the other. Once we had held our daughter's small hand in crowded places. Her slender fingers were now braided into her husband's hand, the back of which was marked in blue ink with the Om symbol, a tattoo Deepak acquired at the age of ten with the money his father had given him to buy sweets at a fair, in his native land of the Punjab. By way of this matrimonial bond, India was now a part of our daughter's destiny, and in that roundabout way also a part of our own destiny. And for the moment, this was India.' (Author's abstract)