The coastal path south from the hotel runs through extensive landscaped hillside gardens, probably created by the Portuguese, but now to a large degree blurred to more natural tumbling contours. A dozen terraces step up the hillside with palm trees planted regularly. The undergrowth is the usual forest vegetation, interspersed with the odd rose, blooming surprisingly amongst more rampant growth. We walked for nearly an hour, the waves beating to our lower right, eroding the cliff path in places, until we came to a more thickly entangled section where the terraces petered out and the monkeys began. I’m afraid that was enough for me, and we turned round. Fishing boats, both traditional canoes with outriggers, and modern trawlers were out. Today is the first day of the fishing season in many places, and coconuts are thrown into the sea to the gods, for a good harvest. There is still, even by politicians, a strong pressure to propitiate the gods. Only Congress (I) is non-sectarian, and there seems still to be conflict between modern methods and traditional, not least in ayurvedic medicines, but Rajiv Gandhi consulted astrologers. “Letters of an Indian Judge to an English Gentle-Woman” express the schizophrenia well, and in the end, you learn to live with it, or go mad. It’s why the British built up such barriers, and it’s understandable, in the face of endemic fatalism.