I KNOW OF no more comfortable method of transport than by shikara. The photograph opposite is of the taxi-shikara we used on all our long trips over the lakes. The gentleman in the foreground is none other than Shabana himself. These shikaras closely resemble gondolas and I suspect that as many romances have flourished in them as on the canals of Venice. All the taxi-shikaras have names many of which are painful and very often badly misspelt. I can remember ‘Ants Inmy Pants’ ‘Woblan’, ‘King’s Chamber’, ‘New Pintail’ and many others.