This was a day of rest. Whilst I soon tired of it, my youngest son spent about four hours in the swimming pool. The heat was suffocating, although nothing as bad as in Delhi. In the afternoon we wandered around the local smallish market town of Nalagarh. The colours, variety, and movement were breathtaking. There all kinds of people, from Muslim and Hindu holy man, jostling in the streets. A horse and cart pushing its way up the narrow street. Like many English I sometimes question the wave of immigration into my country. Here one can see India and Indians in an uninhibited way. By way of complete contrast on our return, we played croquet on the Maharajah’s lawn.

That night I went to the tiny Hindu shrine in the Fort’s garden. I was alone and, without embarrassment, I knelt down in the Hindu way and touched the earth with my head and acknowledged with courtesy the local God. Some sort of innate Anglo-Saxon sensibility against praying to idols stopped me from praying on as I would in a church. Yet the way the female Gods are dressed is reminiscent of the way the Virgin Mary is dressed in Catholic churches on her feast day.