For the first time since arriving in India I break my policy of only giving away food or water and hand over the "sckoooolpen". Expectant eyes light up and the two kids throw the bikes to the floor and both grab for their reward. As I re-mount my bike, tired, lost and sweating in the afternoon sun after cycling around the ruins of Vijayanagara, the now-ruined capital city of the historic South Indian Empire, I notice at least a dozen other children who had seen the exchange. They are fast approaching, and they too want "sckoooolpen". All of them... And so, as I head for the villages around Hampi, through a giant landscape of giant boulders, lush paddies, banana plantations, weaving through the occasional herd of cows... I do so with the added exhilaration of being
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