Went to India... had a blast.
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 5:59 am
Hi all,
Glad to be back.
Roxanne and I just came back from India a few days ago. Spent two weeks there visiting her mother's side of the family as well as helping organize, and participating in, her nephew's wedding. It was great to finally meet her Indian blood relatives. They're a good bunch of souls and I'm proud to call them family, too.
Roxanne was a little nervous about whether or not her family would take to me but, take to me they did, like frogs to a pond. Okay, so I was little nervous, too, I guess. But all went well. We stayed at Roxanne's Nannyji's (basically, her grandmother) and were treated like guests of honour, what with being looked after by a cook and a maid and a chauffeur.
(There's no 5-star hotel that I know of where room service will handwash your undies! 
).
We stayed mostly in Delhi, with but a one-day excursion to Agra in order to visit the Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal--literally, a wonder to behold! Early in the 18th century, Shah Jahan built this mausoleum for a wife that had given him fourteen children while she was alive; it took twenty-two years to complete the Taj. The Shah, later in his life, was imprisoned by his son in the Agra Fort across the Yamuna river from the Taj... he must've gazed with longing at the tomb he'd built for the love of his life while he wasted away in the Fort. How sad. Just goes to show... even the rich have their troubles. On the way back, we stopped at holy sites devoted to Krishna in Mathura and in Vrindavan and that was an experience in itself. Long story short, I've come to the conclusion that "collection-plate-passing strategies" are similar the world over.
After a 10-passenger bus ride that began in Delhi at 6:30 am, we were mighty happy to be back in Delhi just a few minutes before midnight of that same day. I started feeling my butt again some three days later. 
Delhi itself is a feast for the senses... all ten million of them! Seriously, the city is a cornucopia of sights, sounds, smells, tactile sensations, and tastes. Ah! the tastes of Delhi! We ate such marvelous culinary concoctions--real down-home Indian fare--that never again will I be able to judge the kitchens of our local Indian eateries on their own merits. Roxanne's family's cooking beat 'em all by a million miles. Spicy? You bet! Succulent? Yep! Did we have seconds (and thirds) at every meal? Oh yes! Did we manage to follow our low-carb diet? Uh, you're kidding, right? Nan, roti, rice, aloo (potatoes)... low-carb? Not a chance! But an experience to remember, for sure.
Offset this with the air; the pollution in Delhi is just awful. You've not truly understood what air pollution is until you've blown your nose only to stare down at a tissueful of black dust and charcoal. It's a little unnerving, as in, "you mean to tell me this stuff is heading directly into my lungs?" No wonder many Delhiites riding in open vehicles such as motorcycles and autorickshaws wear a scarf over their face. Greater Delhi has a population of just under 15 million inhabitants (slighltly less than half the population of Canada, the second largest country in the world) and roughly 20,000 new automobiles hit the city's roads every month. It's a disaster. And the traffic! Anything goes, I swear! Not enough room? Hell! Just head on over to the oncoming lane and pray the vehicles there will make way. Sometimes I felt like I was in a video game; to hell with common sense! You see a way to get ahead, to crowd your vehicle in there, to make your serpentine way through a sea of bumpers and fenders, you take it! "Hair-raising" is too mild an epithet for the experience of driving about Delhi. I haven't spotted one single undented car in the city. And this is how parking lots work: you get to whatever market or shopping concourse you're going to and you hand over your keys to the attendant or park your car in neutral so that he can move your car at will while you're shopping in order to accommodate new arrivals. When you leave, you give the attendant (who's helped you extricate yourself from the crammed lot) a 20 rupee note (roughly 50 cents) to thank him for his services before you head back out into nightmare traffic. To be fair, I have to admit that the traffic situation in Delhi is a little exceptional right now, given that subway construction sites and detours are currently criss-crossing the city. They're trying to complete this Metro by the time the Commonwealth Games begin in 2010. Good luck, I say! One final thing: the incessant honking. I've come to believe that honking is, after Hindi and English, the third official language of India. People honk both casually and repeatedly, almost as though they were greeting each other on the road. HONK! "Hey there! I'm here. How are you?" HONK! "Fine, thanks. Watch my fender, will you?" HONK! "Wanna tell the guy ten cars ahead to move?" HONK! "Okay." And on and on it goes, throughout the night (at 11 pm, the freight trucks, which are forbidden from being on the roads during the day, join the fray). I swear, it's like a symphony. You get used to it after a couple of days. I'd sit on the rooftop terrace or stand on the back balcony at night, breathing in the chalky smell of Delhi's dusty atmosphere, and listen to the horns--most vehicles in Delhi have a hand-painted sign on the rear bumper or on the trunk that says "Please horn"--while I sipped my last cup of chai of the day. The soft sibilance of Montreal's hushed overnight tones makes me believe my own city is dead and abandoned in comparison.
I write all this and I realize that I miss India. It's alive, crawling with crammed life. Flocks of green parrots moving through the dusk, flocks of children begging around cars stalled in traffic, street merchant urchins negotiating prices for trinkets as they follow you over a block and a half, chipmunk families building homes in the decaying ruins of temples, cows and camels vying with cyclists loaded with a pickup-truckful of merchandise for space on the dusty streets, the small alleyways of the enclaves teeming with teens and stallholders, the countless feral dogs that roam wherever they please, the Audis and Mercs zooming by the Tatas... this is my Delhi. I loved it.
Perhaps I loved it because I knew I had a safe place to go back home to at the end of the day. Roxanne's grandmother owns a home fit for royalty and we enjoyed its amenities to the fullest (shower and toilet paper rolls included). She's a fine woman, Roxanne's Nannyji. As part of the older generation--she's 75 and one day said about herself, "soon, I will be getting old"--she had trouble understanding why Roxanne and I weren't married. It was in vain that I sought to explain to her that things don't work quite that way back home. She told me that she'd offer me Roxanne's dowry then and there if I proposed to her right now, right this minute, but that I would be the one to have to pay if I put it off into some future. Okay, so I felt a bit of sweat roll down my back for a few seconds and then I replied that Roxanne was priceless. Still, I believe that Nannyji's fully expecting Roxanne and I to be married by the time we return next year. We'll see.
Now, as I said, we went to Delhi for Roxanne's nephew's wedding. And what a wedding it was, folks! Seven distinct ceremonies and/or rituals took place over four or five days, the marriage itself happening near the end, followed by a lavish reception two days later. Six hundred people had been invited to the wedding; five hundred to the reception. Although we'd been in town for over a week before the wedding, we only first met the bride on the actual day of the marriage ceremony. Yes, it's an arranged marriage; Roxanne's nephew had only met the girl a few times in the three months he'd known her. And, boy, she was stunning! That evening was magical. The colourful dresses and saris, the exquisite and intricate costume jewelry, the palatial venue, all made it a night to remember.
You'll be happy to hear that I went native for the occasion, too; I wore a kurta pyjama (the loose, baggy pants) along with a ceremonial long jacket and jhutis (the pointed leather shoes). On the night of the wedding itself, I was part of the bharat, the ceremonial procession of boys and men that lead the groom's car all the way to the marriage venue, dancing madly and gyrating wildly to the beat of the group of Rajasthani drummers that accompanied us. As a bharati, I wore, like all the other males, a suit (no tie, though) and a ceremonial turban. Man, those things can kill you if they're too tight! I asked that mine be loosened just before we left and, as soon as this was done, I could feel my scalp tingle as the blood rushed back into my scalp. My developing headache also disappeared, thank Shiva! The prospect of dancing with a migraine hadn't appealed to me all that much. In fact, just the thought of dancing gave me Delhi Belly flutters. I don't dance... but I do philosophy.
Anyway, we had fun. Our stay in Delhi was nevertheless overshadowed by the events down in Mumbai (which some still call Bombay). On the night of the terrorist attack on the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, a large group of us, uh, young 'uns, were celebrating the end of Roxanne's nephew's life as a single man at the Sheraton in Delhi. The wait staff and bar staff just shut us down, saying there was "trouble" down south and that all the 5-star hotels in large urban areas were going on high alert.
As it turned out, Roxanne's family knew some of the folks that were killed in Mumbai. The celebrations and proceedings seemed to stall for a day or two but, as was the case in New York City in 2001, people soon got their edge back and refused to let their lives be diminished by the threat of violence. Although 200 people were killed in the Mumbai attacks (India's worst incident of terrorism in its history), life in Delhi (and in India) soon went back to normal... with the exception of a now increased security presence. More police, more soldiers, more paranoia. All cars entering luxury hotel lots were bomb-searched (ours included); all visitors to high-traffic tourist sites were meticulously searched (I'd never been frisked by an armed soldier before and the day we went to visit the Taj Mahal in Agra, I was glad I'd chosen not to wear a garter belt or a bra); and all the media were whipped up in a frenzy of demands for political action (it probably didn't help that, while we were there, the District of Delhi was in the heat of a political campaign, the election taking place on the day between the wedding and the reception).
When I came back to work last week, my team (and they were all thrilled and delighted to see me) informed me that a hospital social worker with whom I've had several dealings was, along with her boyfriend, part of the list of casualties in Mumbai. In fact, they were the only two Canadians to lose their lives in the attack. Elizabeth Russell, may you rest in peace. You were a good woman with a great heart. You'll be missed.
Time for me to stop now. I highly recommend a trip to India. If you can steel yourself for some moderate culture shock, it's a great place to visit. I'll be going back next year, for sure. Whether I'll be going there to be married or not remains to be seen.
Still... glad to be back, folks. Glad to be back.
Love,
CJ
Glad to be back.
Roxanne and I just came back from India a few days ago. Spent two weeks there visiting her mother's side of the family as well as helping organize, and participating in, her nephew's wedding. It was great to finally meet her Indian blood relatives. They're a good bunch of souls and I'm proud to call them family, too.
Roxanne was a little nervous about whether or not her family would take to me but, take to me they did, like frogs to a pond. Okay, so I was little nervous, too, I guess. But all went well. We stayed at Roxanne's Nannyji's (basically, her grandmother) and were treated like guests of honour, what with being looked after by a cook and a maid and a chauffeur.
(There's no 5-star hotel that I know of where room service will handwash your undies! ).We stayed mostly in Delhi, with but a one-day excursion to Agra in order to visit the Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal--literally, a wonder to behold! Early in the 18th century, Shah Jahan built this mausoleum for a wife that had given him fourteen children while she was alive; it took twenty-two years to complete the Taj. The Shah, later in his life, was imprisoned by his son in the Agra Fort across the Yamuna river from the Taj... he must've gazed with longing at the tomb he'd built for the love of his life while he wasted away in the Fort. How sad. Just goes to show... even the rich have their troubles. On the way back, we stopped at holy sites devoted to Krishna in Mathura and in Vrindavan and that was an experience in itself. Long story short, I've come to the conclusion that "collection-plate-passing strategies" are similar the world over.
After a 10-passenger bus ride that began in Delhi at 6:30 am, we were mighty happy to be back in Delhi just a few minutes before midnight of that same day. I started feeling my butt again some three days later. Delhi itself is a feast for the senses... all ten million of them! Seriously, the city is a cornucopia of sights, sounds, smells, tactile sensations, and tastes. Ah! the tastes of Delhi! We ate such marvelous culinary concoctions--real down-home Indian fare--that never again will I be able to judge the kitchens of our local Indian eateries on their own merits. Roxanne's family's cooking beat 'em all by a million miles. Spicy? You bet! Succulent? Yep! Did we have seconds (and thirds) at every meal? Oh yes! Did we manage to follow our low-carb diet? Uh, you're kidding, right? Nan, roti, rice, aloo (potatoes)... low-carb? Not a chance! But an experience to remember, for sure.
Offset this with the air; the pollution in Delhi is just awful. You've not truly understood what air pollution is until you've blown your nose only to stare down at a tissueful of black dust and charcoal. It's a little unnerving, as in, "you mean to tell me this stuff is heading directly into my lungs?" No wonder many Delhiites riding in open vehicles such as motorcycles and autorickshaws wear a scarf over their face. Greater Delhi has a population of just under 15 million inhabitants (slighltly less than half the population of Canada, the second largest country in the world) and roughly 20,000 new automobiles hit the city's roads every month. It's a disaster. And the traffic! Anything goes, I swear! Not enough room? Hell! Just head on over to the oncoming lane and pray the vehicles there will make way. Sometimes I felt like I was in a video game; to hell with common sense! You see a way to get ahead, to crowd your vehicle in there, to make your serpentine way through a sea of bumpers and fenders, you take it! "Hair-raising" is too mild an epithet for the experience of driving about Delhi. I haven't spotted one single undented car in the city. And this is how parking lots work: you get to whatever market or shopping concourse you're going to and you hand over your keys to the attendant or park your car in neutral so that he can move your car at will while you're shopping in order to accommodate new arrivals. When you leave, you give the attendant (who's helped you extricate yourself from the crammed lot) a 20 rupee note (roughly 50 cents) to thank him for his services before you head back out into nightmare traffic. To be fair, I have to admit that the traffic situation in Delhi is a little exceptional right now, given that subway construction sites and detours are currently criss-crossing the city. They're trying to complete this Metro by the time the Commonwealth Games begin in 2010. Good luck, I say! One final thing: the incessant honking. I've come to believe that honking is, after Hindi and English, the third official language of India. People honk both casually and repeatedly, almost as though they were greeting each other on the road. HONK! "Hey there! I'm here. How are you?" HONK! "Fine, thanks. Watch my fender, will you?" HONK! "Wanna tell the guy ten cars ahead to move?" HONK! "Okay." And on and on it goes, throughout the night (at 11 pm, the freight trucks, which are forbidden from being on the roads during the day, join the fray). I swear, it's like a symphony. You get used to it after a couple of days. I'd sit on the rooftop terrace or stand on the back balcony at night, breathing in the chalky smell of Delhi's dusty atmosphere, and listen to the horns--most vehicles in Delhi have a hand-painted sign on the rear bumper or on the trunk that says "Please horn"--while I sipped my last cup of chai of the day. The soft sibilance of Montreal's hushed overnight tones makes me believe my own city is dead and abandoned in comparison.
I write all this and I realize that I miss India. It's alive, crawling with crammed life. Flocks of green parrots moving through the dusk, flocks of children begging around cars stalled in traffic, street merchant urchins negotiating prices for trinkets as they follow you over a block and a half, chipmunk families building homes in the decaying ruins of temples, cows and camels vying with cyclists loaded with a pickup-truckful of merchandise for space on the dusty streets, the small alleyways of the enclaves teeming with teens and stallholders, the countless feral dogs that roam wherever they please, the Audis and Mercs zooming by the Tatas... this is my Delhi. I loved it.
Perhaps I loved it because I knew I had a safe place to go back home to at the end of the day. Roxanne's grandmother owns a home fit for royalty and we enjoyed its amenities to the fullest (shower and toilet paper rolls included). She's a fine woman, Roxanne's Nannyji. As part of the older generation--she's 75 and one day said about herself, "soon, I will be getting old"--she had trouble understanding why Roxanne and I weren't married. It was in vain that I sought to explain to her that things don't work quite that way back home. She told me that she'd offer me Roxanne's dowry then and there if I proposed to her right now, right this minute, but that I would be the one to have to pay if I put it off into some future. Okay, so I felt a bit of sweat roll down my back for a few seconds and then I replied that Roxanne was priceless. Still, I believe that Nannyji's fully expecting Roxanne and I to be married by the time we return next year. We'll see.
Now, as I said, we went to Delhi for Roxanne's nephew's wedding. And what a wedding it was, folks! Seven distinct ceremonies and/or rituals took place over four or five days, the marriage itself happening near the end, followed by a lavish reception two days later. Six hundred people had been invited to the wedding; five hundred to the reception. Although we'd been in town for over a week before the wedding, we only first met the bride on the actual day of the marriage ceremony. Yes, it's an arranged marriage; Roxanne's nephew had only met the girl a few times in the three months he'd known her. And, boy, she was stunning! That evening was magical. The colourful dresses and saris, the exquisite and intricate costume jewelry, the palatial venue, all made it a night to remember.
You'll be happy to hear that I went native for the occasion, too; I wore a kurta pyjama (the loose, baggy pants) along with a ceremonial long jacket and jhutis (the pointed leather shoes). On the night of the wedding itself, I was part of the bharat, the ceremonial procession of boys and men that lead the groom's car all the way to the marriage venue, dancing madly and gyrating wildly to the beat of the group of Rajasthani drummers that accompanied us. As a bharati, I wore, like all the other males, a suit (no tie, though) and a ceremonial turban. Man, those things can kill you if they're too tight! I asked that mine be loosened just before we left and, as soon as this was done, I could feel my scalp tingle as the blood rushed back into my scalp. My developing headache also disappeared, thank Shiva! The prospect of dancing with a migraine hadn't appealed to me all that much. In fact, just the thought of dancing gave me Delhi Belly flutters. I don't dance... but I do philosophy.
Anyway, we had fun. Our stay in Delhi was nevertheless overshadowed by the events down in Mumbai (which some still call Bombay). On the night of the terrorist attack on the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, a large group of us, uh, young 'uns, were celebrating the end of Roxanne's nephew's life as a single man at the Sheraton in Delhi. The wait staff and bar staff just shut us down, saying there was "trouble" down south and that all the 5-star hotels in large urban areas were going on high alert.
As it turned out, Roxanne's family knew some of the folks that were killed in Mumbai. The celebrations and proceedings seemed to stall for a day or two but, as was the case in New York City in 2001, people soon got their edge back and refused to let their lives be diminished by the threat of violence. Although 200 people were killed in the Mumbai attacks (India's worst incident of terrorism in its history), life in Delhi (and in India) soon went back to normal... with the exception of a now increased security presence. More police, more soldiers, more paranoia. All cars entering luxury hotel lots were bomb-searched (ours included); all visitors to high-traffic tourist sites were meticulously searched (I'd never been frisked by an armed soldier before and the day we went to visit the Taj Mahal in Agra, I was glad I'd chosen not to wear a garter belt or a bra); and all the media were whipped up in a frenzy of demands for political action (it probably didn't help that, while we were there, the District of Delhi was in the heat of a political campaign, the election taking place on the day between the wedding and the reception).
When I came back to work last week, my team (and they were all thrilled and delighted to see me) informed me that a hospital social worker with whom I've had several dealings was, along with her boyfriend, part of the list of casualties in Mumbai. In fact, they were the only two Canadians to lose their lives in the attack. Elizabeth Russell, may you rest in peace. You were a good woman with a great heart. You'll be missed.
Time for me to stop now. I highly recommend a trip to India. If you can steel yourself for some moderate culture shock, it's a great place to visit. I'll be going back next year, for sure. Whether I'll be going there to be married or not remains to be seen.
Still... glad to be back, folks. Glad to be back.
Love,
CJ
, makes me and the mem-sahib feel like a trip to Waitrose for take away bhajis and pilau rice. Nice to have you back safely too.