In 2012, may you have everything you need 'on your backside'
My trip to Delhi in December was a long and beautiful one. Got a chance to go to Agra with the folks. Somehow, all my memories of the Taj are very tactile. Yes, Taj is of course a visual opus of sorts. But Taj, for me, is lodged in my fingertips, on my palm, on the soles of my feet. I remember the feeling of deep inlay work, smooth expanses of marble, cool grooves of the jharokas , and pricks of sharp grass in the gardens. I also remember the shy warmth of light. When you see the Taj, pay attention to how light behaves around it. The light, both sunlight and moonlight, wafts around the monument the way a poem wafts around a poet's head before he puts pen to paper. I was thinking of something ethereal to wish all of you for New Year's. But somehow, something else keeps coming to mind. It's a memory that has managed to dislodge the magnificent impact of even the Taj. The memory, surprisingly, involves Delhi. The memory, alarmingly, involves an auto-rickshaw fellow. It was...