India at last - after 17 years!

Day 0: 23rd Sept 2008:

Delhi at last - made it! We flew Etihaad Air from New York to Delhi via Abu Dhabi. As it turned out, my friends Misha and Rita were also on the same flight. I enjoyed traveling with them, discussing our future adventures and travel plans. We will be trekking in Nepal together, after which they plan to continue on their travels through south india, onto other parts of south east asia - they are not sure how long they will be gone yet - sounds exciting!

Getting into Delhi was interesting, internally a little tense - unsure how I'd react to India after so long. In some sense I come as a tourist who will be making new memories but another part of me is here on a nostalgic mission to capture a little piece of my old life. We/(I) tend to romanticize parts of our lives when sufficient time has passed, this might serve as a reality check.

Onto matters of practical interest, Misha has traveled here on his own pretty extensively and even though I speak the language fluently, it was good to arrive in Delhi with Rita and Misha. It was a simple matter to get a pre-paid taxi at the airport, to Dwarka - a stranger was kind enough to let me use his cell phone to call my friends and let them know I'm safely in Delhi. The small acts of genorsity shown by strangers is one of my favorite parts of traveling.

The smells, the sounds; one too many cars on the roadways aggressively trying to get ahead. Delhi is intense. The taxi was an old ambassador, as the driver cranked the starter twice, I wondered if it would start. There were photos of Shiva and other gods on the dash - I guess driving around in Delhi is an act of faith. He had a very fancy car stereo, with blinking indigo lights that played CDs and maybe even MP3s; he turned the radio on and I presume the fancy stereo was perhaps more for looks than functionality - but I can appreciate the sense

of pride one feels in accomplishment. To him, perhaps the stereo represented just that - though again I assume and presume things. The traffic in Delhi is something else, everybody is trying to get to their destination ahead of the next guy - but really I guess when you have these many vehicles and this variety of vehicles on the road all at once, the only way to get anywhere is to be aggressive. Even so, I winced many times as I saw scooters and autos come rather close to the taxi. Somehow, there is a rhythm to this chaotic Delhi traffic and life moves

mostly without incident.

Upon reaching home, I enjoyed a lovely dinner with my hosts: my friends Shubha, Jitendra, Kuhu and Pihu. Listening to the girls talk about school, teachers, and their friends around the dinner table, I was remembering similar dinner conversations in our home in NOIDA. The dinner table was always a place for catching mummypapa up with all the activities of the day. Mother and father become this one entity called mummypapa and the conversation is dominated by kids activities, mostly school related.  A sense of family closeness is evident.

The daily cycle of life:

The girls are up at 6 and 6:20, and ready to go by 6:40 and 7:15. Mamma and papa are coordinating together as the single entity mummypapa. Papa gets the girls up, mamma is busy packing tiffins, as papa ensures the kids are getting ready and moving along so as to 

not miss their buses. Then he's off to drop them off at which point mamma starts to make breakfast/lunch for papa who will start getting ready to head off to the office soon. Mummy then drops off papa to the bus stop. After ensuring everybody is off on time, mummy, the coordinator, then starts her work for the day which continues at a more normal pace. This activity is then repeated at a slower pace once the kids are back home from school, and the evening cycle starts: lunch, homework, tennis lessons, dinner etc.  Much of the days work is compressed within these morning hours and evening hours. 

I'm impressed by how efficient Shubha is in using the morning hours for getting most of the cooking done. I'll have to implement some of her good habbits in my daily routine.

Simple things in life:

I enjoyed a refreshing, cold bath with a bucket as we used to do way back when - it's the familiarity of these little things that connect me to not just India, but most places I travel. It is different yet familiar; sleeping with the girls under a ceiling fan. The service (Air Force) life, where papa is often out since that's what the work demands. When papa is not around, mama sleeps with the kids - everybody in the big room under the ceiling fan.