Another season, another reason...

I have discovered the purpose of historical sites in India. They are for canoodling. Courting. Boyfriend-and-girlfriend business.

This morning, I was one of about 6 genuine tourists at the British Residency in Lucknow (the others, who arrived after I did, were part of an organized tour that the guide kept trying to get me to join: he'd first approached me at the Shah Najaf Imambara -- a very odd and very beautiful mosque a few blocks from my hotel --which they'd gotten to just as I was leaving, inspiring me to get to the Residency post haste before they caught up). Despite this paucity of camera-toting foreigners, however, the grounds were hardly unoccupied. In fact, I kept on stumbling on couples in all sorts of odd corners and all sorts of embraces. Well, OK -- not that many actual embraces. Mostly, couples were sitting next to one another, perhaps holding hands. One woman was lying down with her head on her boyfriend's lap. I did, though, interupt one couple who were leaning against the wall and kissing rather passionately.

Or so I thought. I left rather too quickly to actually see.

My reaction, in all encounters, was to try to pretend I hadn't seen anything, and to give the lovers a little private space. Or -- I admit it -- to try to take their pictures from afar, a few times. Nothing obscene: just a shot of two people holding hands in front of a ruined building. I still felt a little funny about it, though --both in terms of the invasion of privacy (although they were in a public place) and in terms of the politics of my turn to the picturesque, making the people part of the landscape. Then I thought about my experience at the Taj, and decided it was OK. Not to mention the very fancy hotel wedding I witnessed part of in Agra, as I was sitting in the lobby reading and killing time before my train: the bride had appeared on her way to the reception, and every tourist in the place snapped her photo. She willingly posed. I guess if you get that dressed up, it may as well be put to good use, eh?

Actually, a young couple at the Residency approached me and asked me to take their picture -- with my camera, oddly enough. I offered to send them a copy of it when I got home, and took the girl's address. She was giggling a lot.


Indians and foreigners are treated very differently when it comes to admission to sites. Not only is the price often radically different (100 rps for foreigners at the Residency, and I think 10 rps for locals), but so are the trappings: the Indian admission price gets you a little paper ticket, of the kind that comes in strips, but made with rougher paper than in the States. Foreigners get a glossy 3x5 ticket with a picture of the monument in question, and sometimes other perks, as well: at the Taj, the price included a bottle of water and a set of shoe covers. Indians, apparently, are expected to drink the tap water and to take off their shoes rather than cover them.

The Residency is basically a huge park full of trees, bougainvillea sprays, and ruins. It was a lovely place to spend a few hours -- so for 20 rps, it sounds like a pretty good date.