Our home for a while. ABN Rajmahal.

Comfortable, tasteful with highly polished floors. More staff than passengers.

Mama Ganga was full, turbulent and whipped by winds. Now in her clutches she was reluctant to let us go. We practised putting on our life jackets three times in our attempts to get off the boat. The tender rocked wildly. Perhaps mama Ganga wanted to purify us in one fell splash. We hung on and got to the shore.

A visit to the Sikh temple of Guru Gobind Singh. It is the sacred birthplace of the tenth and last Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh Ji, who was born here in 1666. Reverence for the book of rules being recited. Marble inlay decorations and gold everywhere while musicians played the tabla. We had to cover our heads.

We visited the kitchens which offer free meals to all. Since our last visit to India these kitchens are now mechanised. A machine turns out hundreds of chapatis and vats churn dal and vegetable curries.

Attempting to make the chapatis by hand is more demanding for sure.

A quick visit to the ultramodern Bihar Museum which we suspect may have been the inspiration for this evening’s first course.

Meanwhile the monsoon wreaks havoc and combined with a cyclone in the area diverted the flight on which Cs suitcase may have been on, back to Kolkata. The rain is torrential. Roads are flooded. Motorcyclists and bikers crowd under bridges to take refuge and Indians play the road game so expertly “ How close can I get without touching” and “how can I squeeze into that empty space on this potholed flooded road.”The two rules of the Indian roads. We sit like stunned rabbits in the headlights admiring their manoeuvres and honking. The whole of India has DNA which makes them supermen on roads.

There are Rivers in the Sky as the wonderful Elif Shafak noted and now added to the rain is a suitcase floating between airports.

Meanwhile C is getting into the local spirit of some holy men!