"How many?"

"Oh, hundreds of thousands of them. Maybe millions, if you count the sheep. But we use humane methods, and we don't believe in unnecessarily hurting them."

"My father is saying, he thinks it is very hard to _eat one of these big animals, without hurting it." He then sought to explain my nature to his father by recounting for him the story of how I'd given up my seat, on the train journey, to allow an elderly man to sit, how I shared my fruit and other food with my fellow passengers, and how I often gave to beggars on the streets of Bombay.

Kishan pulled the cart to a sudden stop, and jumped down from the wooden yoke. He fired a stream of commands at Prabaker, who finally turned to me to translate.

"My father wants to know if we have it any presents with us, from Bombay, for him and the family. I told him we did. Now he wants us to give it those presents to him here, and in this place, before we go any more along the road."

"He wants us to go through our bags, here, on this track?"

"Yes. He is afraid that when we get to Sunder village, you will have a good hearts, and give it away all those presents to other people, and he will not get his presents. He wants it all his presents now."

So we did. Under the indigo banner of early-evening sky, on the scratch of track between fields of undulant maize and millet, we spread out the colours of India, the yellows and reds and peacock blues of shirts and lungi wraps and saris. Then we repacked them, with fragrant soaps and sewing needles, incense and safety pins, perfume and shampoo and massage oils, so that one full bag contained only those things we'd brought for Prabaker's family.

With that bag safely tucked behind him on the rails of the ox- cart harness, Kishan Mango Kharre launched us on the last leg of our journey by striking the dumbly patient ox more often, and with a good deal more vigour, than he'd done before I tried to intercede on its behalf.

And then, at last, it was the voices of women and children, raised in laughter and cries of excitement, that welcomed us. The sounds reached us moments before we turned the last sharp curve and entered the village of Sunder along a single, wide street of swept, pressed, golden river sand. On either side were the houses, distributed so that no house faced into another across the street. The houses were round, made of pale brown mud, with round windows and curved doors. The roofs were made with little domes of thatched grasses.

Word had spread that the foreigner was arriving. The two hundred souls of Sunder village had been joined by hundreds more from neigh- bouring villages. Kishan drove us into the throng, stopping outside his own home. He was grinning so widely that everyone who looked at him was moved to laugh in return.

We climbed down from the cart, and stood with our luggage at our feet in the centre of six hundred stares and whispers. A breath- filled silence settled on the crowd, packed so tightly that each one pressed upon his neighbour. They were so close to me that I could feel the breath upon my face. Six hundred pairs of eyes fixed me with the intensity of their fascination. No-one spoke.

Prabaker was at my side, and although he smiled and enjoyed the celebrity that the moment gave him, he too was awed by the press of attention and the surrounding wall of wonderment and expectation.

"I suppose you're wondering why I've called you all here," I said, in just the serious tone of voice that would've been funny if there'd been a single person in the crowd who understood the joke. No-one did, of course, and the silence thickened, as even the faint murmurs died away.

What do you say to a huge crowd of strangers who are waiting for you to say something, and who don't speak your language?

My backpack was at my feet. In the top flap pocket there was a souvenir that a friend had given me. It was a jester's cap, in black and white, complete with bells on the ends of its three cloth horns. The friend, an actor in New Zealand, had made the jester's cap as part of a costume. At the airport, with minutes to go before my flight to India, he'd given me the cap as a good luck charm, a remembrance of him, and I'd stuffed it into the top of my backpack.

There's a kind of luck that's not much more than being in the right place at the right time, a kind of inspiration that's not much more than doing the right thing in the right way, and both only really happen to you when you empty your heart of ambition, purpose, and plan; when you give yourself, completely, to the golden, fate-filled moment.

I took the jester's cap out of the pack and put it on, pulling it tight under my chin, and straightening the cloth horns with my fingers. Everyone at the front of the crowd drew back with a little inrushing gasp of alarm. Then I smiled, and wiggled my head, ringing the bells.

"Hello, folks!" I said. "It's show time!"

The effect was electrifying. Everyone laughed. The entire group of women, children, and men erupted as one, laughing and joking and cry- ing out. One person reached out to touch me on the shoulder. The children at the front reached for my hands. Then everyone within grasping distance patted, stroked, and grabbed me. I caught Prabaker's eye. The look of joy and pride I found there was a kind of prayer.

He permitted the gentle assault for some minutes, and then asserted his authority over the new attraction by clearing the crowd away. He succeeded, at last, in opening the way to his father's house and, as we entered the dark circle of Kishan's home, the chattering, laughing crowd began to disperse.

"You must have a bath, Lin. After such a long travel you must be smelling unhappy. Come this way. My sisters have already heated the water on the fire. The pots are ready for your bath. Come."

We passed through a low arch, and he led me to an area beside the house that was enclosed on three sides by hanging tatami mats.

Flat river stones formed a shower base, and three large clay pots of warm water were arranged near them. A channel had been dug and smoothed out, allowing water to run off behind the house.

Prabaker told me that a small brass jug was to be used to tip water over my body, and gave me the soap dish.

I'd been unlacing my boots while he spoke, and I cast them aside, threw off my shirt, and pulled off my jeans.

"Lin!" Prabaker screamed in panic, leaping, in a single bound, across the two metres that separated us. He tried to cover my body with his hands, but then looked around in anguish to see that the towel was on my backpack, a further two metres away. He jumped for the towel, snatched it up, and jumped back, giving a little shout of panic-Yaaah!-each time. He wrapped the towel around me, and looked around in terror.

"Have you gone crazy, Lin? What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to... take a shower..."

"But like that? Like that?"

"What's the matter with you, Prabu? You told me to take a shower.

You brought me here to have a shower. So, I'm trying to take a shower, but you're jumping around like a rabbit. What's your problem?"

"You were naked, Lin! Naked, without any clothes also!"

"That's how I take a shower," I said, exasperated by his mysterious terror. He was darting about, peering through the tatami matting at various places. "That's how everyone takes a shower, isn't it?" "No! No! No, Lin!" he corrected, returning to face me. A desperate expression contorted his normally happy features.

"You don't take your clothes off?"

"No, Lin! This is India. Nobody can take his clothes off, not even to wash his bodies. This is India. Nobody is ever naked in India. And especially, nobody is naked without clothes."

"So... how do you take a shower?"

"We wear it the underpants, for having a bath in India."

"Well, that's fine," I said, dropping the towel to reveal my black jockey shorts. "I'm wearing underpants."