The Jawaharlal Nehru University

you enter the gates and immediately notice the reluctant red flowers on the trees, rendered pink by the lights. the guard eyes you suspiciously for no reason at all, as you pass the mob and the mud to come to ganga dhaba, where she smokes a cigarette and buys you tea.

then she takes your hand and makes you walk down a road that wants to end but seems too lazy to until you come to a tree, that's like all the other trees except the flowers are a shade redder (kdding). we hide behind a hedge and change into flowing maroon robes.

'these cost some shit', she says, 'but everyone has to get one.'

it's sweaty and uncomfortable but we have to wear it to get in

in is half a mile down, where we notice another red robe run past us. there are suddenly other red robes about, generally making merry. there's a boy who's reading the autobiography of jim morisson by a small fire.

'it's getting harder', she says, 'keeping the filth out. it's hard enough tolerating them in class. even the way they look at you is just..'

morisson's fire is soon a whole lot larger and we're standing around it in a circle holding hands as someone's i-pod (connected to a battery powered i-dock) switches from sean paul to a celtic version of Led Zepplin's Stairway to Heaven.

an american in a red robe is holding what clearly looks like some arcane volume and is trying to sound british.

'what're we doing?'

'raising the dead.'

' all of them'

'no', she says, 'just one'