I was seriously bummed at having to miss the wedding of my friends Manu and Helena in Udaipur this year. Helena's a Brit, and Manu's a local boy - very Rajput - who owns a few tourist shops and a guesthouse in the old city. I've known them since my first trip to India in 1999, when they were still just getting to know one another; by the time I returned in 2000, they had opened a restaurant together and Helena had learned to speak the local dialect.


The wedding


A photo taken with my sister in 2003.