Kaleidoscopic impressions of India

E.S. | 5 Jan 1993

A cow is aborting at the side of the road. Nearby sits a man with a sawn-off arm and no hands. He is covered in flies, and his body is bent from the waist so his face rests on the tarmac. The next day both man and animal are in the same positions. They are in a street in which a woman buckets out the contents of an open sewer and piles it by the side of the road, then a dog starts to eat it.

We’re staying in a rose sandstone Umaid Bhawan Palace amid the splendour in which the maharajah still lives, with Art Deco suites and tigers’ heads on the walls.

• Travel: Asia/ Oceania