As well as using incense, Gowda has turned old bits of house timber into battered versions of abstract sculpture and fashioned ropes of human hair into looping drawings.
I carry a battered old version of Chambers for emergencies and a pad of paper to make notes as I go.
He runs off to get a less battered version and when he returns says: "Thirteen, my boss tell me".
I am now a battered veteran of two holiday seasons.
And he held out a battered pack of Pall Malls.
The other day, I found a battered copy of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
The ceremony was engagingly quirky, with soldiers in aging, ill-fitting uniforms marching self-consciously out of step, and a military band that used battered brass instruments to play a poignantly discordant version of the old royal anthem.
The fourth was a battered paperback copy of Neil Gaiman's American Gods.
And out came Willie Nelson, clutching his battered guitar, mumbling his way through a marvelously casual version of "Night Life".
A remixed version of "E.T".
