Lil and I share the highway with dogs and cows as we drive to Agra, a town that booms because a Mongol emperor wanted to build the biggest mausoleum in the world for his wife. She died bearing his fourteenth child, and when she wasn’t having his children she used to go to battle by his side. She encouraged him to build this monument to her, and now, 400 years later, she still wins, hands down, as having the biggest grave in the world—where she lies, getting trampled on by ten

Lil and I arrived in New Delhi at 1 a.m. this morning. On the drive in, we saw big men in camouflage gear with machine guns, lonely limping dogs on the sides of the dark highway, and lots of flashing lights in trees, fountains, and on the backs of cars whose drivers honk every time they overtake, as if the cars are talking to each other. We are staying at the Bloomrooms Hotel, which means we are now “blooming across India.” As we check in, there are strange men lurking in the