Akihi, writes Shweta Bachchan Nanda

'Akihi: (Hawaiian) Listening to directions and then walking and promptly forgetting them.

The reason we Homo Sapiens are still in business, making a jolly old mess of our bright blue spot in the solar system, and not having our bones dug up, dusted off, pinned together and hung up at museums, where little boys can stare at them in jaw-gaping awe, is because we have, amongst other redeeming qualities - opposable thumbs.

Now an opposable thumb has abetted greatly in our evolution and eventual dominion over the species because, it enables us to grasp things, with the eventual goal of being able to text 500 words per minute to our BFF sitting all of four feet away from one. Jokes apart, it made holding stuff possible which came handy when we needed to fashion spears out of wood, so that daddy could go grab us some dinner, and so on and so forth.

The prehistoric concept of fast food was slightly different from ours, in that the only way they could get a Happy Meal was if they out-ran it, which left a lot of people sitting around the bonfire bellyaching about how the service had really deteriorated. Some of our slightly more impatient predecessors took to expressing their displeasure, by indulging in a little primeval graffiti, and contemporary art was born.

Many moons later, this translated into me being dragged one afternoon, by my sister-in-law Nitasha to the India Art Fair, which has been successfully held in Delhi for the past six years. Now, you don't know me at all, but I suspect you may think I kind of have a clue about stuff, mainly because I've been trying my best to impress you for the past 12 weeks (its been THAT long, and this is the most consistent I've been at anything my whole life).

Fact is, I know very little about very many things, but Contemporary Art and Wine are not a part of my scholastic repertoire. Suffice it to say, I stay far away from art shows, wine tastings and carbs, neither of which when indulged show me in the best light. But here I was, at the fantastically massive Art show severely out of my depth and not yet in possession of my sea legs.

A map clenched in my now sweaty palms, I was set adrift at a sea of people and paintings. I decided to follow my sister-in-law, as she jauntily navigated this labyrinth of booths, avoiding eye contact in the hopes of not being called out on what I liked or which artist I found most interesting, because truth be told, I hadn't a clue. Trying to fly under the radar at an art fair is akin to showing up fully clad at a nude beach, a big mistake. All everyone seems intent on doing is observing in minutiae every nuance, and I haven't even gotten round to telling you how they were looking at the art.

At some point, I lost the sister-in-law and was left to my own rather paltry devices. The experience is similar to having had let go of your mother's hand while at a toy store when you were a child; you cannot decide if you should go find said figure of authority or take advantage of the unsupervised time to sample the goods. I decided on the latter. Everything was either impossibly clever, beautiful, complicated or gaudy, I met several people I used to know before I went into self-imposed exile and kissed more cheeks than I had on the stroke of midnight on New Year's.

I felt rather purposeful and accomplished albeit for the wrong reasons before I realised I was hopelessly lost. After a couple of misdirections, which kept leading me back to the same stall, I was nowhere closer to finding my strayed relative when an obliging gent, figuring I needed assistance gave me explicit directions to the lounge, which I promptly forgot the second I walked away from him and somehow ended up at the exit doors of the exhibition.

Stepping out into the sunlight I felt rather like Adam and Eve would have after they were evicted from the garden of Eden - frankly quite pleased to take a time-out from all that beauty! Absconding relative found, the rest of the evening was given to more gastronomic delights at a charming roof top café, chatting up with friends about everything but art, the best part of my afternoon and as informative.

We, Homo Sapiens are hard-wired to follow instructions, with prognostics of dire consequences. However, as many male readers would attest to, as they really get a bad rap for this, sometimes going 'Akihi may lead you to far more pleasurable destinations than the ones you set out to seek.