The monument as carnival

This man (with the awesome mustache, and lunch in one hand) will weigh you for a small fee. He wants to weigh you before you get on with the business of tourism.

What’s the point of weighing someone here? I ask, to which he replies, “you weigh yourself today, and the next time you visit, you weigh yourself again and you’ll know how much weight you’ve lost or put on.” It’s almost as if he’s enticing visitors to come and see him, instead of seeing the buildings (visitors, who don’t have a scale at home that is). For tourists coming from remote parts of the country some of the weighing business could be fun I imagine. In communities where the method of knowledge dispersal is often hearsay, a fact such as the number of kilograms one is made up of could be a novel curiosity.

Hoping to entice young customers, a vendor sits with fluffy cotton candy right at the entrance to the Lahore Fort.

Even after the disastrous events of April, 1912, the “Titanic” continues to be a popular choice of name for waterborne objects such as the one pictured above. The toy boats are readily available for sale at the entrance to the monuments, and delight many.