It was 1992; five days since the Ayodhya flashpoint, when Hindu fundamentalists tore down the Babri Masjid, a sacred site for Muslims in Utter Pradesh. Unrest across the country, Bombay most affected. Wrong place, wrong time for yours truly: enshrined by the escalating mess, stranded like a beached whale in Juhu: captive in my prison-like hotel. ....

I arrived at a small gathering of traditional huts in the far west of Bangladesh, with ludicrous visions flashing through my brain which included the humble cow - sacred to a multitude of Hindus on the subcontinent - scratching out letters in the dirt or counting off chickens with a nod of its head, as they crossed the village path. The modern-day image of the bovine beast, currently undergoing a state of decline, might suddenly rise again to worship and widespread acclaim. ....

I looked on from a nearby doorway as this man disappeared down an invisible hole in the ground! He was dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase. If the guy had been wearing a bowler, it was perfect material for Monty Python. The funniest part was he climbed out with briefcase still to hand, shook himself off, and carried on walking, as if nothing had happened. Passers by didn’t blink an eyelash ....

The aircraft comes to a stop and on leaving the cabin I’m given a hand-written message: Welcome to India. So sorry I’m unable to meet you. My driver will take you to the hostel. He will be holding a sign with your name, after customs. Lakshmi. After baggage collection I exit through glass doors; an animated Indian crowd, three or four deep, calling and gesticulating madly.

“Which train sah? An older, bearded man – headdress matching porter’s tunic - stepped forward from a gaggle of workmates, with the stock-in-trade question. I was boarding at Dadar Station, where tracks to the North and East went their separate ways.

“What on Earth is he doing?” I muttered to myself. My Indian friend after being tapped on the shoulder by a passer-by, had immediately jumped up and followed the man forward to a vacant row. Then, from what I could make out, he lay face down across the seats. It seemed all set for an embarrassing scene!

My first Indian school was a six-story affair, built around a small quadrangle, catering for kids from kindergarten through to mid-teens. Eight classrooms on five floors: forty in all! I’d worked with Australian schools for many years, most sprawled over large grounds, thus high-rise education was for me a novel concept.

It was baffling. Why would men – and men only - sit drinking beer, or whatever, whilst watching a fashion show, which consisted of young ladies walking around and around in circles, fully decked out in colourful apparel? They were all dressed exquisitely. Could that be the clue?

It was a typically Indian train: robust and rumbling – a relic from The Raj - but it got the job done. We trundled down from the hills around Bangalore, to the plains which stretched to Chennai. I jumped down at a deserted stop ....

The sun was already high in the sky when we arrived at The Taj Mahal. Clambering from the rickshaw, I noticed a young boy approaching. “Sir, you want cool drink?” Immediately I had images of a million stomach-churning bugs floating in cloudy liquid! “No thanks. Maybe later.” ....

So here I sit, soon after the crack of dawn, astride an old wooden chair, positioned dead centre behind a microphone on a tall metal stand. To my left, with jet-black hair and dressed like an Indian queen in white sequined saree, sits the school’s head: a somewhat formidable figure, attending her final Republic Day parade.

The big brown eyes of one child in particular, were like a magnet to my camera. Towards the back of the hot sticky bamboo hut, and amongst three dozen kids of similar age, she was planet Venus, shining out like a bright beacon in a starry sky. In reverse, I must have appeared as an alien to them, dropping in from Mars.

Resplendent in orange robes supported by black beard, she screamed at me with all the power her young lungs could muster. As the revered Freedom Fighter, Alluri Sitarama Raju, she taunted me in animated fashion. I was the visiting dignitary from a faraway place, diminished by this slip of a girl with the voice of a veteran.

The Taj Mahal bathed in afternoon sun was in stark contrast to the dead man I saw lying on a platform in Bhopal. Those first two weeks in India challenged my norms, as I rode aboard snake-like trains, pulled by huge diesel locomotives. The trains and I began in Bombay (renamed Mumbai), then drew a wide circle, via New Delhi and Calcutta, ending back near the start .....

My minders collected me from this relatively grand hotel in central Dhaka. We piled into a jeep; boss with driver up front, negotiating the traffic bedlam of the morning rush. Slowly the suburban slums gave way to palm trees and paddy fields. The road to the south of the capital was a single lane highway; smooth and straight.

Returning to India grew to be a second homecoming. Touchdown was always Mumbai, which for a decade or two I knew as Bombay. Each time, as the aircraft powered forward, dipping towards the runway, those glimpses of a hazy, undulating terrain would return to my porthole view. In reality, it was the most extreme lifestyle interface one could imagine: high-tech planes gliding in over squalid slums .....