Sandstone drawn into honeycomb patterns that rise into the skies. Elephants that race along, interspersed with giant horses. Musicians with flutes and drums. Gods and goddesses. Consorts and demons. Swans and monkeys. And everywhere, like a thread that links the sandstone to the extent of the sculptor’s imagination, are the voluptuous women whose very stance is a self-conscious regard of themselves and their bodies.

This then is Khajuraho. World Heritage Site and tourist kumbh. Home to an extraordinary burst of temples with some of the finest architecture conceived by the human mind and carvings wrought by the mortal hand. And a modern day lesson in the economics of tourism and what it can do to corrupt.

My friends, an English couple and I, arrived in Jhansi after an insipid train ride of 35 hours. Much as I love trains, this one left me feeling as if I was going nowhere. The landscape barely changed and day and night were registered only by the increase and decrease of the air conditioning. In Jhansi then I felt the first frisson of delight. The cold. Biting cold that left our fingers numb and turned our ear tips into ice cubes. Three hours later we were in Khajuraho.

As we drove in, the driver said, “This is the international airport. It will be ready soon!” In a little village of about 9000 people, where 70 per cent live by agriculture and the balance 30 per cent eke a livelihood out of tourism, an international airport promises to be figurative manna, food descending from the heavens in the garb of seeing eyes and curious minds.

The next few days, we heard this repeated again and again, except that after the first time, I felt a shudder pass through me, each time. The consequences are already everywhere – from Hungarian goulash in a restaurant menu to the phoren ‘twang’ in the English spoken by guides, vendors and cycle rickshaw drivers. From signboards advertising genuine Italian food to the chorus children break into: “Hello-pen-chocolate-shampoo-saboon-ten rupees please,” to kitsch-laden shops. From the murmured tip-off at the temple site by the security guards to preying guides: “there’s one for you,” to that blatant cunningness that is derived from the thought that here are a few gullible bakras that we should lead to the slaughter.