The census taker: Stories of a traveler in India and Nepal

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How does a Western census taker count non-bodies, or tally marriages in which the only legal and binding ones are to bel fruits? Marilyn Stablein leads us on an intimate journey through India and Nepal with a vivid collection of images and encounters. Here, the Western mind meets the Eastern world. Whether describing Tibetan hotels, animal sacrifices, plunging buses, or how a toilet becomes a museum, Stablein has an eye for detail, a facility with language that includes elements of reportage, folk tales, exotic narrative, and a sensitivity to the cultures she evokes. Dreams and reality, enlightenment and practicality weave together creating an American women's portrait of life deep in the heart of regions unknown to most of us. Blending the conventional with the bizarre, the every-day with the exotic, the mundane with the extraordinary, Stablein introduced us to a cast of unforgettable characters: an untouchable woman from a tantric sect of Shiva worshippers who raids the funeral pyres on the banks of the Ganges; a washerman who teaches "the Art of Washing Clothes" to a group of hippies; a young Westerner who meditates himself into a trance listening to old, scratchy Beatles tapes.