Ananya Dance Festival

After 6 days of nursing a fever, flu, wracking cough, body aches and a secondary throat infection, trapped in the apartment obsessively watching the global financial crisis unfold and people dying in Zimbabwean hospitals, tonight was a treat.

My colleague whisked me over to the beautiful Purana Qila - the Old Fort, where Indian classical dance was being performed tonight against the 16th century ramparts as a magnificient open-air backdrop to dancing women. All under a full moon, with a slight nip in the October air (and it's about bloody time too).

Of course I had to go with a tickly throat so was practically blue in the face trying to stop the impulse, furiously sucking away at Vicks cough drops and drinking a litre of water at the same time to stop a hacking fit. Halfway through I had to do the dramatic run-out-to-back to hack away to my heart's content. Returned paranoid to my seat that I had been identified as the Hacking Lady in the Third Row.

Just when there were so many beautiful men out there tonight, in traditional clothes, expatriates, musicians, dancers, photographers - and I even bothered with my hair and make-up only to wreck it with the hacking.

Thanks a lot, secondary throat infection.

But otherwise, it was Amazing Event #2 in Delhi (after Sanskriti).