IT WAS A WHOOPING EIGHTY-TWO degrees at one o’clock in the morning as the plane landed. We trod out amid grunts and whimpers, put out by the longitudes crossed and the times left behind.

I found my belongings and wheeled them to a counter where customs officers asked why I was in India. I’m here on business, visiting blah-blah-blah, blah-bla-blah-blah. I was in India because I wanted to be in India. With that in mind, I walked out of the airport and encountered a blanket of fog enveloping everything.

Stepping into the dense night felt like walking into a black-and-white movie and it seemed like ages before I spotted a taxi driver, as if I had become part of a movie playing around me. We couldn’t leave fast enough — traffic got jammed up with old cars, mopeds, and rackety contraptions teeming with people and bags. They jiggled down the road in a mesmerizing haze.