It's midnight, pitch-black yet the air is full of life, and I find myself venturing down a Himalayan foothill, in northeast India, to enter a temple (celebrating Lord Vishnu) in the middle of the jungle - and 30 minutes before we arrive, Kripal informs me, casually, that "there are tigers in these woods, but nobody has been killed by one ever since the sacrifice to Lord Shiva 50 years ago, so you are safe."

Every drop of rain that washed across the windshield of my car could not conceal the doom in the moment he lost control of the wheel and we blindly drifted wildly round and around the echoing trees with my eyes wide watching the horror of what would be the last moments of my life, and while my heart beat it's final thumps I was feeling the blur until the miracle of cheating death rebore us to the road once again, completely unscathed.