It is often said that India's infrastructure of railways and telephones and postal services works so well because it owes much of its design to the former British rulers.
Trains run and phone calls connect.
But at the same time there are invisible obstacles to be circumvented by the visitor who thinks it is as simple as it looks. Last week's column, which appeared from my end to have arrived safely, in fact failed the obstacle course. I was staying on a farm in Kerala, which is at the very bottom of the V-shape of India. The farm lies on the bank of a wide, green, slowly-flowing river much like the River Eden in its lower reaches. About a mile away is the nearest village.