Kissing Through a Pane of Glass Read Online Free
Author: Peter Michael Rosenberg
Tags: General Fiction
you”, “Come look at my postcards” and, “I guide you, good price”. And more: the rattling of ruined rotor blades and eccentric extractor fans, the gurgling of prehistoric plumbing and the slamming of rickety doors. The cries of children, the squeal of pigs...
There is noise and there is noise, but in India, there is only the latter.
After the madness of Delhi, Udaipur came as something of a surprise to me. I was just getting used to the idea that India was a noisy, smelly, filthy, overcrowded madhouse, and suddenly this glorious city appeared, like an oasis in the desert, to confound and delight me. On my first day I wandered around awestruck, trying to absorb in its entirety all that I set my eyes upon, from the lowliest shack to the grandest edifice.
Udaipur was dominated by its wonderful City Palace, the grandest and the largest that I had seen at that time. Standing on the edge of Lake Pichola, it was a magnificent structure, an immense folly, composed of turrets and towers, cupolas and balconies, built in grand Moghul style, totally overshadowing the lake edge. The years had not been kind to the City Palace, and time had taken its toll; walls were crumbling, paint was peeling, and much of the interior had been given over to a museum housing a sad collection of inconsequential garbage, but even so, the place still reverberated with the glory of its former days.
Lying in the shadow of the palace, between the main buildings and the lake, I discovered a strange, timeless no man’s land of forgotten courtyards, open stairways, empty passages and ruined walkways. In this peaceful, half-awake world lived a small community of squatters who had made their homes among the rubble and detritus.
I wandered through this area with a growing fascination, taken aback by the sheer oddity of its existence. In order to make my way through this dream world, I had to traverse a convoluted, maze-like route. Every now and then I’d find myself following a passageway leading to a staircase that would in turn give on to a deserted open terrace that offered the most spectacular view of the lake and its crowning glory, the white marble fantasy of the Lake Palace, a shimmering mirage that appeared to float upon the surface of the lake.
Such was the power that this extraordinary building held on the imagination, that whenever it came into view I would stop in my tracks and stare in awe and disbelief.
At one such terrace the view was completely unobscured, so I sat down on the cool flagstones, positioned my back against the wall, and marvelled at the spectacle. The air was clear and warm, the sky a brilliant, undisturbed blue. Ahead of me, the waters of the lake rippled in the gentle breeze, and the only sounds to be heard were the occasional birdcall and the steady rhythms of wet fabric being beaten against stone, as the dhobi wallahs executed their clothes-washing duties.
I must have sat there, mesmerised, for a couple of hours, drawing in the visions before me, mulling peacefully over the events of the previous few days. It was the first peaceful time I had had since my arrival.
By late afternoon the sun - no longer beating down from on high - had entered my general field of view, heralding a magnificent sunset which lay just a couple of hours away. How lucky I am, I thought to myself, to have been allowed to witness this, to experience this moment.
And as if this wasn’t enough to keep a twenty-one- year-old entranced, into this dream walked another, more splendid vision.
‘Have you everseen anything more beautiful?’
The interruption should have shocked me, jolted me out of my reveries, caused me, at the least, consternation. But it did not. The voice was as peaceful as the scene I had been gazing at, and I merely turned my head to discover who had spoken.
‘Have you?’
I had not.
That first sight of Liana still registers as one of the few perfect moments of
There is noise and there is noise, but in India, there is only the latter.
After the madness of Delhi, Udaipur came as something of a surprise to me. I was just getting used to the idea that India was a noisy, smelly, filthy, overcrowded madhouse, and suddenly this glorious city appeared, like an oasis in the desert, to confound and delight me. On my first day I wandered around awestruck, trying to absorb in its entirety all that I set my eyes upon, from the lowliest shack to the grandest edifice.
Udaipur was dominated by its wonderful City Palace, the grandest and the largest that I had seen at that time. Standing on the edge of Lake Pichola, it was a magnificent structure, an immense folly, composed of turrets and towers, cupolas and balconies, built in grand Moghul style, totally overshadowing the lake edge. The years had not been kind to the City Palace, and time had taken its toll; walls were crumbling, paint was peeling, and much of the interior had been given over to a museum housing a sad collection of inconsequential garbage, but even so, the place still reverberated with the glory of its former days.
Lying in the shadow of the palace, between the main buildings and the lake, I discovered a strange, timeless no man’s land of forgotten courtyards, open stairways, empty passages and ruined walkways. In this peaceful, half-awake world lived a small community of squatters who had made their homes among the rubble and detritus.
I wandered through this area with a growing fascination, taken aback by the sheer oddity of its existence. In order to make my way through this dream world, I had to traverse a convoluted, maze-like route. Every now and then I’d find myself following a passageway leading to a staircase that would in turn give on to a deserted open terrace that offered the most spectacular view of the lake and its crowning glory, the white marble fantasy of the Lake Palace, a shimmering mirage that appeared to float upon the surface of the lake.
Such was the power that this extraordinary building held on the imagination, that whenever it came into view I would stop in my tracks and stare in awe and disbelief.
At one such terrace the view was completely unobscured, so I sat down on the cool flagstones, positioned my back against the wall, and marvelled at the spectacle. The air was clear and warm, the sky a brilliant, undisturbed blue. Ahead of me, the waters of the lake rippled in the gentle breeze, and the only sounds to be heard were the occasional birdcall and the steady rhythms of wet fabric being beaten against stone, as the dhobi wallahs executed their clothes-washing duties.
I must have sat there, mesmerised, for a couple of hours, drawing in the visions before me, mulling peacefully over the events of the previous few days. It was the first peaceful time I had had since my arrival.
By late afternoon the sun - no longer beating down from on high - had entered my general field of view, heralding a magnificent sunset which lay just a couple of hours away. How lucky I am, I thought to myself, to have been allowed to witness this, to experience this moment.
And as if this wasn’t enough to keep a twenty-one- year-old entranced, into this dream walked another, more splendid vision.
‘Have you everseen anything more beautiful?’
The interruption should have shocked me, jolted me out of my reveries, caused me, at the least, consternation. But it did not. The voice was as peaceful as the scene I had been gazing at, and I merely turned my head to discover who had spoken.
‘Have you?’
I had not.
That first sight of Liana still registers as one of the few perfect moments of
Readers choose
Ross Turner
Lurlene McDaniel
Garland
Glen Tate
Sydney Landon
J.D. Robb
J.T. Ellison
Jennifer Beckstrand
Margaret Weis