Turning, and turning around, on the Rann does not alter the white horizon. Salt– brilliant under the sun–dazzles the eyes, opens the lachrymal canals. We taste our own salinity as time seasons us.

The Little and Great Rann of Kutch stretch salt on the surface of the earth as far as the eye can see. They are earth that becomes sea, and sea that becomes earth, and land that turns to salt as it dries. Once the Rann of Kutch was a forest, with dinosaurs that are now fossils under the salt. Then, as the Arabian Sea made its claims on the shore, it became something like a marine drag queen, masquerading for half the year as land.