So we were sitting at my favourite table at the roof-top restaurant at two in the afternoon. You can see the lake from there and at night this beautiful wind blows there that makes the whole experience of the ghats just completely serene. But we're sitting there at two in the afternoon, with the sun right overhead, in the middle of this strange Paharganj of the desert. While sitting in the baking heat we watched this woman in a white sari with red flowers water the plants on the roof of her house with a steel matka. And even though this was at a considerable distance, just the sight of the water flowing out was such a relief.
All civilisations were built around water. We too were sitting in this dirty little tourist spot, with its unwashed firang hordes, covered in grime and sweat, just to crowd around this dirty little lake. And the night before we were talking in bed about the Mariana trench. Did you know that the Mariana trench is so deep that if you inverted Mt. Everest and stuck it in the trench there would still be about 7000 feet of water above it? Did you know nobody's been down there, right at the bottom and nobody knows what monsters lie in its shadows? We spoke about it in the dark, scaring each other with just the thought of having that sheer quantum of water over you. Of just trying to wrap your head around the amount of water surrounding you, that dense unbelievable weight right above your head. About how if somehow you were there, you could swim and swim forever and never leave.