SHIVPURI, MADHYA PRADESH, INDIA — The night before leaving Delhi , I found myself stuck in yet another staggering traffic jam on one of the east-west arteries crossing the south side of town. As I gingerly split the lanes in 1st gear, the driver of a car I squeezed past rolled down his window. “Are you the man from the Hindustan Times ?” he asked.
“Why yes,” I said, surprised at my first-ever taste of celebrity. “Yes I am.”
“You’re crazy!” he said, and gave me the thumbs-up, with a head bobble thrown in for good measure. I continued on my merry way at 3km/h, sitting a little more upright on my increasingly sagging saddle. I spent the rest of the ride admiring myself in my mirrors, pondering whether or not I should put on my sunglasses so as to look even cooler. My fifteen minutes weren’t up just then, either. Later on in the evening, while waiting by the side of a highway for a friend to show up, another stranger — this time o