We travelled through a seeming paradise all day yesterday to get to the edge of hell. All day the calm beauty of the Orissa countryside seduced us. White long-horned cattle against deep red sandstone-mud cottages; thatched hay-ricks on stilts, the harvest safely gathered in. An old man in a fine white handspun dhoti walking calmly behind his single cow, umbrella aloft against the still fierce winter sun. A small boy with a string of shells and tiny bells around his loins. Women in dazzling saris washing clothes in ponds full of lotus flowers.
