Waking up in Delhi

7am: woke up earlier to the sound of birdsong out the window and chattering, bantering conversation from a room nearby after three hours of sleep on a hard Indian canopy bed, naked without its mosquito net dress. Half awake, I watched a soft silver beam of light move very slowly across a t-bar at the foot of the bed, illuminating the grain of the dark wood. I watched mosquitos testing the reach of the ceiling fan's wake. I couldn't see anything that I heard, and I couldn't hear what I could see.

I think that India will probably be like this hard bed, the kind of bed that points out all the misalignments in your body, all the crooked tilts of asymmetrical hips and shoulder blades.