During the following three hours of that perilous acceleration, we rose to the peak of a ridge of mountains marking the edge of a vast plateau, known as the Deccan, and descended once more to fertile plains within the rim of the plateau. With prayers of gratitude, and a new appreciation for the fragile gift of life, we left that first bus at a small, dusty, deserted stop that was marked only by a tattered flag flapping from the branch of a slender tree. Within an hour a second bus stopped.

"Gora kaun hain?" the driver asked, when we climbed aboard the step. Who's the white guy?

"Maza mitra ahey," Prabaker answered with contrived nonchalance, trying in vain to disguise his pride. He's my friend.

The exchange was in Marathi, the language of Maharashtra State, which has Bombay as its capital. I didn't understand much of it then, but the same questions and answers were repeated so often during those village months that I learned most of the phrases, with some variations, by heart.

"What's he doing here?"

"He's visiting my family."

"Where's he from?"

"New Zealand," Prabaker replied.

"New Zealand?"

"Yes. New Zealand. In Europe."

"Plenty of money in New Zealand?"

"Yes, yes. Plenty. They're all rich, white people there."

"Does he speak Marathi?"

"No."

"Hindi?"

"No. Only English."

"Only English?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"They don't speak Hindi in his country."

"They don't speak Hindi there?"

"No."

"No Marathi? No Hindi?"

"No. Only English."

"Holy Father! The poor fool."

"Yes."

"How old is he?"

"Thirty."

"He looks older."

"They all do. All the Europeans look older and angrier than they really are. It's a white thing."

"Is he married?"

"No."

"Not married? Thirty, and not married? What's wrong with him?"

"He's European. A lot of them get married only when they're old."

"That's crazy."

"Yes."

"What job does he do?"

"He's a teacher."

"A teacher is good."

"Yes."

"Does he have a mother and a father?"

"Yes."

"Where are they?"

"In his native place. New Zealand."

"Why isn't he with them?"

"He's travelling. He's looking at the whole world."

"Why?"

"Europeans do that. They work for a while, and then they travel around, lonely, for a while, with no family, until they get old, and then they get married, and become very serious."

"That's crazy."

"Yes."

"He must be lonely, without his mummy and his daddy, and with no wife and children."

"Yes. But the Europeans don't mind. They get a lot of practice being lonely."

"He has a big strong body."

"Yes."

"A very strong body."

"Yes."

"Make sure you feed him properly, and give him plenty of milk."

"Yes."

"Buffalo milk."

"Yes, yes."

"And make sure he doesn't learn any bad words. Don't teach him any swearing. There are plenty of arseholes and bastards around who will teach him the wrong sisterfucking words. Keep him away from motherfuckers like that."

"I will."

"And don't let anyone take advantage of him. He doesn't look too bright. Keep an eye on him." "He's brighter than he looks, but yes, I will look after him."

It troubled none of the other passengers on the bus that the conversation of several minutes had taken place before we could board the bus and move off. The driver and Prabaker had made sure to speak at a volume adequate to the task of including everyone in the bus. Indeed, once we were under way, the driver sought to include even those outside the bus in the novelty of the experience. Whenever he spied men and women strolling on the road, he sounded the horn to draw their attention, gesticulated with his thumb to indicate the foreigner in the rear of the bus, and slowed to a crawl, so that each pedestrian could examine me with satisfactory thoroughness.

With such democratic rationing of the astounding new attraction, the journey of one hour took closer to two, and we arrived at the dusty road to Sunder village in the late afternoon. The bus groaned and heaved away, leaving us in a silence so profound that the breeze against my ears was like a child's sleepy whisper.

We'd passed countless fields of maize and banana groves in the last hour of the bus ride, and then on foot we trudged along the dirt road between endless rows of millet plants. Almost fully grown, the plants were well over head-height, and in a few minutes of the walk we were deep within a thick-walled labyrinth.

The wide sky shrank to a small arc of blue, and the way ahead or behind us dissolved into curves of green and gold, like curtains drawn across the living stage of the world.

I'd been preoccupied for some time, nagged by something that it seemed I should've known or realised. The thought, half submerged, troubled me for the best part of an hour before it swam into the field of vision of my mind's eye. No telegraph poles. No power poles. For most of that hour I'd seen no sign of electric power--not even distant power lines.

"Is there electricity in your village?"

"Oh, no," Prabaker grinned.

"No electricity?"

"No. None."

There was silence, for a time, as I slowly turned off all the appliances I'd come to regard as essential. No electric light. No electric kettle. No television. No hi-fi. No radio. No music. I didn't even have a Walkman with me. How would I live without music? "What am I going to do without music?" I asked, aware of how pathetic I sounded, but unable to suppress the whine of disappointment in my voice.

"There will be music full, baba," he answered cheerfully. "I will sing. Everybody will sing. We will sing and sing and sing."

"Oh. Well. Now I feel all right."

"And you will sing, too, Lin."

"Don't count on it, Prabu."

"In the village, everybody sings," he said with sudden seriousness.

"U-huh."

"Yes. Everybody."

"Let's cross that bridge and chorus when we come to it. How much further is it to the village?"

"Oh, just a little bit almost not too very far. And you know, now we have water in our village also."

"What do you mean, now you have water?"

"What I mean is, there is one tap in the village now."

"One tap. For the whole village."

"Yes. And the water is coming out of it for one whole hour, at two o'clock in every afternoon."

"One whole hour per day..."

"Oh, yes. Well, on most days. Some days it is only coming for half an hour. Some days it is not coming out at all. Then we go back and scrape the green stuff off the top of the water in the well, and we are no problem for water. Ah! Look! Here is my father!"

Ahead of us, on the rambling and weedy path, was an ox-cart. The ox, a huge curve-horned beast, the colour of cafe latte, was shackled to a tall, basket-shaped cart mounted on two wooden, steel-rimmed wheels. The wheels were narrow but high, reaching to my shoulder. Smoking a beedie cigarette and sitting on the ox-bow yoke, his legs dangling free, was Prabaker's father.

Kishan Mango Kharre was a tiny man, shorter even than Prabaker, with very close-cropped grey hair, a short, grey moustache, and a prominent paunch on his otherwise slender frame. He wore the white cap, cotton kurtah shirt, and dhoti of the farmer caste.

The dhoti is technically described as a loincloth, but the term robs the garment of its serene and graceful elegance. It can be gathered up to become work shorts for labour in the fields, or loosened to become pantaloon-style trousers with the ankles free. The dhoti itself is always moving, and it follows the human contour in every act from running to sitting still. It captures every breeze at noon, and keeps out the dawn chill. It's modest and practical, yet flattering and attractive at the same time. Gandhi gave the dhoti prominence on his trips to Europe, in the struggle for Indian independence from England. With all due respect to the Mahatma, however, it's not until you live and work with India's farmers that you fully appreciate the gentle and ennobling beauty of that simple wrap of fabric.