jaipur...very very briefly

I'm sorry to disappoint, but we were in India for all of 48 hours. I think we spent more time on Air India than in the actual country. We basically landed, slept, did a full day of Jaipur Literary Festival appearances (as in: my mom was on panels, CNN interviewed us, my dad beat off creepy guys with a stick, and droves of random people tried to take our picture. Funny story: Oprah was there, and two of her bodyguards were arrested for assaulting paparazzi. "Bubble of personal space" is not a concept in India.)

The Indian make-up artists had their way with me

...which meant I got a Snooki pouf (YES) and Bollywood

eyeliner. Photos, as usual, by Lulu.

...and then had less than a day to see the sights (mainly sites) of Jaipur. The yellow skateboard-ramp thing up there is the world's biggest sundial. Some prince commissioned this huge plaza full of incredibly accurate time-telling devices, which were mainly used to determine royal horoscopes. Actually, horoscopes are still consulted in modern-day India when it comes to arranging marriages. And yes, we are nerdy enough to get excited by a yard of giant clocks.

  ♫ which one of these is not like the others? ♫

I've only been twice, but I -- like many travelers before me -- have fallen in love with India. Now, before you pull out your slings and arrows of righteousness, let me be clear that this is not a treatise on India's social ills or tumultuous history. One, it's not my place, and two, you've heard it before. So what two cents can I add to your picture? Well, I know this is super un-PC, but I'm going to make this observation anyway: In many places I've visited that have a history of colonization, local culture seems to stagnate in the face of Western influence. It fossilizes into a tourist attraction that white people then have to patronizingly appreciate out of post-colonial guilt. In India, by contrast, it seems like British influence was swallowed whole by an ancient tradition that is alive, evolving, and hungry. The result is that visiting India is like being plunged into a different world...and as someone who has been to all corners of the globe, I can tell you that doesn't happen a lot. There's a sensory overload, a caste system in flux; paupers with bubonic plague beg from princesses wearing rubies the size of ostrich eggs. And then everybody plays cricket and has a literary festival, go figure.

Well, there you go. Two days worth of India.

Last time, we went to Mumbai and Delhi and Agra -- the usual tourist  route -- and it was totally incredible. And yes, this photo is from our old 20-lb 2007 digital camera.