We sit and talk and look at the world below us. Bhagmati nibbles my ear and feels my middle to make sure that chotey mian is still there.

The sun’s rays lose their sting. The sun becomes a large, orange balloon. Lines of crows flap their wings towards the city. Flocks of parakeets streak across the grey sky. From Tughlakabad village a million sparrows rise, wheel over the tops of keekar trees and then settle down on them in a bedlam of twitters.

The orange sun goes down in a haze of dust. Village lads urge their buffaloes to get out of the pond. Their shouts mingle with the chirruping of the sparrows and the forlorn barking of dogs. Then an eerie silence descends on the ancient ruins. Even Bhagmati has run out of words. I tell her of the varieties of silence in a language she does not understand.

There is silence where hath been no sound,

There is silence where no sound may be,

In the cold wave—under the deep, deep sea,

Or in wide desert where no life is found,

Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound;

No voice is hushed—no life treads silently,

But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,

That never spoke, over the idle ground:

But in green ruins, in the desolate walls,

Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,

Though the dun fox or wild hyaena calls,

And owls, that flit continually between,

Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan—

These true silence is, self-conscious and alone.

The evening stars shine in the grey sky. A soft breeze begins to blow. After the hot wind it feels cool, soporific. My eyes are heavy with sleep. I ruffle Bhagmati’s hair. She has fallen asleep. I shut my eyes and am lost to the world.

I waken with a feeling of someone looking at me. It is the full moon shining in my face. A papeeha comes out of the grey sky and settles on a crag a few feet away. It raises its head to the moon and fills the haunted landscape with its plaintive cries, pee ooh, pee ooh.

‘Listen Eugenia!’ Her name is not Eugenia but Bhagmati. The bird is not the nightingale but a Hawk Cuckoo.

Nevertheless its full-throated bursts come crowding through the moonlight.

Eternal passion!

Eternal Pain!

Sometime after this I have my encounter with the bees.

Delhi has a rich variety of bees of which one species, the apis historicus Delhiana, is noted for its attachment to the past. Habitat: high vaulted arches with special preference for the pre-Mughal, Mughal, post-Mughal, Lutyens and Baker. Size of hive: the most massive known in the beeworld. Natural enemies: the urchins of Delhi who torment it with stone, brick, dung smoke and flaming rags. Natural victims: unsuspecting, absent-minded old men who visit historical monuments to daydream.