The flunky puts the hamper and her suitcase on the floor. The chauffeur and the flunky salute and take their leave. She flops into an armchair, glances at her wrist-watch and says, ‘I am dying for a drink. Be a darling and mix me a gin and tonic. And help yourself to anything you like—Scotch, champagne, beer, gin—all on your old President.’

I act the butler. I mix Her Ladyship a gin and tonic. While I am still making up my mind what to take, I have to mix her another and light her cigarette. I make myself a dry martini and sit down on the edge of the bed. I raise my glass. She ignores the gesture. ‘Tell me about this place Suraj . . . Suraj . . . ’

‘Kund to rhyme with the German Bund. Simply means pond.’ I tell her about the Tomar Rajputs who ruled Delhi in the seventh and eighth centuries and their chieftain Surajpal after whom the amphitheatre is named.

She holds out her glass, ‘Be a honey!’

I be a honey and give her another gin-tonic.’ And this dam and the village?’ She puts her legs on either arm of her armchair just as she would do to let a man enter her. How can I talk of the Tomar Rajputs with her opening her thighs in this wanton manner? I try to keep my mind off her middle. ‘The dam was built by another Tomar, Anangpal. He also built the fortified town Anangpur; we can go there in the afternoon. Then he shifted his capital westward and built a citadel of red sandstone which came to be known as Lal Kot.’

She’s lost interest in my lecture. Her eyes are drooping. ‘Go on,’ she orders.

‘No, I won’t,’ I reply rudely. ‘You are half-asleep.’

She laughs, coughs, spits. She throws her cigarette on the floor and squashes it under her foot. ‘Forgive me! I’ll have a wash and get out of this,’ she says holding her blue denims. ‘Won’t be a jiffy.’ She pulls out a skirt from her case and goes into the bathroom. The bathroom has a curtain which only covers the middle part of the doorway. It also has a door; she does not shut the door. She unzips her denims and hangs them on a peg. She wears white lace panties to cover her little bottom. She bends over the basin to wash her face. I know she is doing it to rouse my curiosity. My curiosity rises. She buries her face in a towel. She turns round, bends over and slips on her shirt.

‘Chalo,’ she says. ‘Juldi (quick). Is that right?’

We step out. It is quieter. The snake charmers are bundled under trees and the picnickers are huddled round their transistors; the women are frying pooris. Boys in bum-tight trousers, girls in bosom-and-bum-tight long shirts stroll about the amphitheatre.