"Kit Reed - Rajmahal" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Kit)

place is so rich in history!

And this will tell you something about India. When the last Rajput ruler lost
the place to invaders, his women chose death before dishonor and hurled
themselves into the tank. Except the princess Mrinal. The manager says she died
spectacularly, and all for love; she threw herself off the parapet just as the
enemies broached the last wall and came boiling into the palace, putting an end
to life the way it used to be.

I look at Gary, thinking: Would you die for me? Death before dishonor; I can't
put my finger on it yet, exactly, but I know how they feel.

You can imagine the violence. Rubble everywhere, you can still see traces: raw
holes in some of the ceilings, toppled towers. Then the villagers moved in on
the place -- goats, camels, the works. You can guess what that was like. The
graffiti alone! When the new owners took over, the fort and the palace were
practically wrecked.

The manager took us around and showed us everything they're doing --restoration
is the word. They have people cementing ornamental screens and rebuilding
foliated arches and trying to put everything back the way it was when the Rajput
princes were here. Lord, you could see where entire tops of towers had been
blown away and there are these staircases that just -- break off, so if you
were, like, climbing in a hurry, not looking where you were going? You'd pitch
into nowhere with your legs still moving in midair.

The villagers are lucky to have somebody as enlightened as the Ashok family with
the wherewithal to come in here and protect their greatest asset, this living
monument. Before the Ashoks, the place was open to just anybody, which meant
rock fights and dirt bike races and graffiti up to here. Well now, they only
allow visitors once a year, but hey, it's for the good of the Rajmahal. A few
more months of village parties and scooter races, and the place would have been
an irretrievable wreck.

They should be grateful, right?

The manager says the people in the village are just like friendly children, he
says they're going to love us, but he won't let us walk down the elephant path
or stray outside the gates at night. Too many treacherous rocks and bad places
in the road, he says; too dark, he says, too near dinnertime. Too this, too
that. The manager says the people who work here have given their lives to the
palace, and that they all love the Rajmahal as much as we love being here. P.K.
says they're all committed to our comfort and safety, but when he leaves us he
says please stay within the precincts and mind the chowkidar.

What he said was, wandering the parapets at night just might be hazardous to
your health, but before we had the fight, Gary and I tried it and it wasn't all
that scary. My boyfriend Gary, who I thought I knew before we started on this
trip, the rat! People said, watch out, India may be hazardous to your health.
Well it turned out to be hazardous to our relationship. We need to get someplace