more photos.

This is sunset in Bhopal, over the big lake. There are two lakes, one big, one small, separated by a thin strip of land that rises to cliff-type heights. On the other side are the remains of a fort that was built about 400 years ago. Anyway, you can go boating on this lake, and people do all the time.

Here we are waiting for the groom at a wedding of a cousin of my friend Salman, the one next to me. Most people were outside at this particular moment, but I like to keep my distance from the crowds at weddings like this because they get kind of crazy and set off a ton of these firecrackers that are definitely borderline bombs. I know I've written about them before. They are deafening. They shake the foundations of whatever I'm building I'm in. Because there is always some wedding going on, it always often sounds like the neighborhood is gripped by a guerrilla war. To me, it's a strange way of celebrating something to blast craters in the middle of your party. I think it has something to do with scaring away evil spirits. I should ask about that. Regardless, I'll let the more zealous guys blow up all the evil spirits so I can keep all my limbs and preserve my ability to listen to music beyond the age of 35.

Standing on one of the lanes going into the area Sambhavna is in, just about 100 feet off Berasia Road.

In the late afternoon I went with two friends, Salman and Mukesh, to the Taj-ul-Masjid here in Bhopal, not far from Sambhavna. I had thought it was the second largest mosque in all of India, but Salman says it is the largest. Whatever it is, it's very big and very beautiful. The stone outside was so hot it burnt our bare feet. To save peoples' feet, there were ropey lengths of old burlap strewn about everywhere in lines mostly likely to be walked by people. If you want to photograph the front of mosques, you have to go in the morning because they all are oriented so that you're facing west while praying. Back-lighting is pretty, too, though.

Inside there was a wedding going on. Salman, shameless as ever, snagged three servings of dried coconut, dates, raisins, and nuts, and we sat around munching on that for a while before wishing the groom well and heading out.

Outside on the lawn were a bunch of guys playing cricket. These boys were lined up sitting on the curb to watch.

After Tal-ul-Masjid we caught an elephant snout buggy (that's what I call them) to the center of town to visit Moti Masjid, where we found another wedding in progress. Salman pilfered some gulab jamun, which we ate while Salman explained that "moti" has two meanings, and that the name of this mosque was "Pearl Mosque", not "Chubby Mosque," which is what I thought it meant. It was kind of chubby, anyway. Really beautiful places, though. Bhopal really is a beautiful place with a wild history. I'm not sure if I've mentioned before that it was ruled for most of a century (up until after World War I) by Muslim female rulers called "Begums." These begums created a sort of renaissance here in Bhopal where everyone was literate and diverse and tolerant and went to poetry readings all the time. That's major simplification, of course, but I'm just giving you a rough idea. Bhopal is still one of India's main Islamic centers (more than twice the national average percentage of Muslims here), making it much more diverse and tolerant than a lot of other places in the country.