Die Dame mit der bemalten Hand

Bombay, 1764. India was not on the travel itinerary, and Elephanta, this scruffy island full of snakes and goats and caves with strange figures on the walls, certainly wasn't either. Yet the explorer Carsten Niebuhr from Bremen has found himself stranded here, even though he was supposed to be in Arabia. The same goes for Master Musa, a Persian astrolabe maker from Jaipur, who intended to be in Mecca. They communicate in broken Arabic, just enough to pass the days together until their rescue. They misunderstand each other in an east-west manner and engage in friendly disputes about constellations (for where one sees a woman, the other merely sees her painted hand). By the way, it could all have been a fever dream. But that is written in the stars.