Dewa is the first passenger in the bus. The bus drives round and round the city collecting other passengers. Blazered students from an Indian College fill the back seats. A small boy is with his parents. By the end of the journey he becomes very difficult and calls his mother a ‘bloody basket.’ A pleasant nun from Aurangabad sits next to her. It is difficult to imagine that there are convents in a Muslim stronghold like that city—but one does exist. Though the nun is herself from Bombay. She is the only child of elderly parents. When she decided that her vocation was to be a Roman Catholic nun, they had accepted her decision without demur. As soon as the bus takes the road to Bangalore the videos begin. What one sees is the impossible, the fantastic; maya, illusion, is part of the accepted reality in this country. What you see, you believe actually happens: incredible battles, warfare that wipes out whole armies, conflicts from confused ideologies, and love, ideal and romantic, with lovers who sing to each other with the bravura of operatic singers. The heroines are impossibly noble, ever ready for death and sacrifice. And in defeat there is total destruction. Yet another video is switched on when the first one is over—a villain is portrayed, the tyrant of the village who has the power of life and death over people, tortures his enemies, wrests children from parents for obstructing his passage through the streets of the township in his chariot. The heroine is tortured. She slides down a chute into a room where she is imprisoned. Enormous crabs creep out from every corner as she lies helpless; they crowd round her, scuttle over her body. She shrieks in fear and pain but does not die. She is rescued by the hero in the nick of time and the villain finds himself there in her place. He is not rescued. The students adore it. The rest of the passengers are spellbound. Clapping, cheers, greet these heroic feats. Some passengers wipe tears from their eyes.

They stop to visit the gumbaz of Tipu Sultan, Fatima Begum, Hyder Ali. Sightseers of history, of time, viewing all that is left, monuments and ruins.

‘How was Tipu Sultan killed?’ Dewa asks the guide. He mentions two names, one of them is that of Captain Harry.

‘This place Tipu Sultan body found,’ he continues. He points to a grassy spot with a brick wall that is in ruins.