"In a country of palaces and pavement dwellers where does one look for a home? .... We are struggling for a wholeness of vision that can encompass this world of marble halls and that other world outside the gates, where streets teem with vendors and beggars, gold and hunger, children, animals, and death, where everything and nothing flies in the dusty air."

On learning kathak, one of the styles of classical Indian dance:

     "We tie the heavy ghungurus around our ankles--a hundred little bells on each string that wraps half a dozen times around. Then the namaste, brief sequence of homage, to Krishna, to the guru, to dance, to music, to Apollo, to grace, to tradition, to ritual--all flood through my alien mind as the arms circle wide, fingertips brush the floor, palms press together before the face, then fleetingly touch each instrument. All is ritual...
    Ta tei tei tat, ta tei tei tat. The gap-toothed guru speaks the rhythms, sitting complacently on his cushion, watching our hands try to draw in the air the designs he sees, and that we strive to see."