Orchha at dusk

From our fort hotel looking down on the lush rural ideal of Madya Pradesh: Unhurried buffalos graze with swooshing tails, an ibis riding on back. In the field a family tends their small plot in the cool of the day. A lady in sari carries a big bundle of fresh cut grass on her head, another with a bundle of sticks on her head and a limp. A red tractor passes with a red trailer piled high with people. Beyond the fields, wooded forest, and on the horizon lazy undulations of an ancient landscape. The river meanders slowly across the flats carrying waters warmed by the hot hot day – The stone under my feet throbs with the same heat. A temple singer recites holy words under holy trees, and the pre-dusk spirals of tweeting swallows rise overhead. And parrots. And dragonflies. A pair of vultures swoop from the top of the fort and fly low over the town to a ruin on the other side. In the courtyard a man sweeps the ground in wide arcs. I soak up every gradation of the setting sun and dimming light. And then the golden pre-dusk glow falls from the walls of the fort and the thermals still, the swallows go quiet and the transition to night is complete. After
dinner we emerge to a dark sky full of stars. Another day in the life of a 400 year old fort.