This requires a bit of explanation: Ted and I were hooked up with the freind of a friend who was to meet us when we arrived at the Delhi airport. While wiating for our ride with the heavily armed airport security we were amazed at the generally decrepit conditions of the buildings and vehicles (not to mention struggling with my own feelings of general alarm from the angry looking men with machine guns). After about 30 minutes, when everyone had already been picked up (except the menacing soldiers) our shiny, new, cheauffer driven Mercedes Benz pulls up. Ahh! A sigh of releif.

Shashank quickly offered up copious amounts of salutations and generosity. He then invited us to go Tiger hunting! (Last time I heard it was a violation of several international treaties to hunt tigers, but . . .) He even asked us if we were interested in knocking off some of the local population!!! Ted and I just smiled and nodded. It quickly became apparent that Shashank, was a mad man and filthy rich to boot his family owning numerous hotels and liquor distribution corporations.

We were taken to the hotel and felt safe, for that night at least.

The next day was the University fair and it was a bloody rampage! The booths were absolutely over run and a melay that ensued. Women and lesser men ran. Only those who were able to master their fear stayed to the end. After the fair ted and I were treated to the most amazing feast I have ever seen. It looked like there was half a lamb on the center of the table and other huge piles of food completely covering the table. Maybe we ate 1/8 of the food. I remember so clearly ripping off handfulls of the juiciest lamb and stuffing it in my face. Ohh! that was a great meal.

The next evening Shashank invited us to a party at palace in Old Delhi. This place was huge with apparently 90 rooms. It was also quite delapidated and from the outside it did not look like a palace, but we went in anyway. The room pictured above was where the party was held. Those are bonefide classic art treasures on the walls.

Ted, Sanjay, Shshank and I at the palace.

You gotta love the dancing fairly lamp. That place was so rediculously ornate that Ted and I could not keep a straight face.

Off the main room there was an authentic and maticulously reconstructed Playboy Bar from one of the Asian Playboy Mansions. That's real gold leaf covering everything and those are real gold coins on the red velvet walls.

There were about 20 people that showed up for the suaree including an american girl who seemed to have befriended our hosts. She damn near got raped by Shahsank in the after hours of the party. Ted was drunk and I was kind of freaking out at the bizarre events that were unfolding. Fortunaltely she was not too badly mauled, but I was certainly shaken up. At about 3 or 4 in the morning came the ride home from hell.

Since we had no idea where we were, we were at the mercy of our guide. Well, he was smashed and so were Sanjay and Ted. I regretfully did not drink that much at the party and was frightfully sober. Shashank drove like a lunatic at 90 miles per hour through the streets. He actually was aiming at pedestrians who were wandering about. Swerving in and out of lanes, driving on the wrong side of the road, screeching through round abouts. I was shitting in my pants. And then there was Ted. All drunk and hooting it up. Egging him on! All the while I am next to him in the back seat elbowing him in the ribs saying "Stop it man! We're gonna DIE!" I will never forget that ride. I do count it as one my near death experiences!

The next morning at 5:30 we had a car and driver reserved for our day trip to see the Taj Mahal in Agra, so on 2 hours of sleep we stumbled down to the hotel lobby and got on our way. We had no idea how long it would take to get there. Well, it takes about 6 hours to get there. And there are no highways there just a crowded, pot holed road through the desolation that is the heart of India. Our vintage '60's model Hindustan Embassador made the trip, but only after about 50 near head-on-collisions with everything from pedestrians to camel carts to trucks wild dogs! About an hour into the trip I sat on a bottle of water causing it to burst on the back seat, which remaind completely soaked, and forced me to sit in the front seat. Ted was totally hung over and passed out in the back leaving me to sit silent and afraid in the death seat. The driver spoke no english and did not attempt to communicate. It was one of the single worst experiences of my life. It is also on the list of near death experiences. We were literally inches away from massive accidents way too many times.

The Taj Mahal itself was breath taking. A true work of magnificence.

India was the last stop in our travels and I have never been so relieved as the day we got off the plane in Japan. I can still remember the utter joy I felt when we deplaned at Narita.

Photographs by Steve Prokai & Ted Dixon - Autumn 1995