India is not…

…a country of poverty and perverse Victorian customs lost in time and place. It is not Mother Teresa or slums, cholera or cyclones, terrorists or dodgy airlines. It is first and foremost a country of the senses. India is felt on the skin, tasted in all the mouth, heard through every pore, and smelt even when sleeping. It is spices and aromas and sensuous fabrics. If you are the remotest bit tactile India is seductive. The “elephant in the room” when you wander the forts and historical sites of India is the serialisation  of the Moguls’s erotic stories, graphically played out in the friezes around their Red Forts which are startling for their portrayal of every form of sex imaginable (and then some). Numerous temples are as open in the portrayal of erotic are. The rest of India walks around seemingly oblivious to this cultural backdrop. In the heat, humidity, spice and sweat of India it is hardly surprising the Moguls paid the senses so much attention. Or that someone like Prabuddha  Dasgupta delivers up images like these. Not what you were expecting out of India now really was it?