India trip 7/8 through 7/19
7/6 - 7/8
Greetings and salutations from a distant land. I have started this email while flying over Europe and listening to the Clash (I Fought The Law, for any that were wondering, with London Calling queued up). I thought it fitting since specifically I'm over Ireland and will go by London soon enough. Now, before you all start saying that there is no way for me to really tell because when you're a mile high all land looks the same, I know this to be true because there are nifty little screens that tell you cool information regarding not just where we are, but also altitude, speed, time remaining, distance covered, outside temperature, tail wind speeds, etc. It's actually probably better than some of the other programming (CBS sitcom Beck and Indian soap operas aren't my ticket). I'll post a proper photo journal regarding the sequence of this trip as soon as I am able. I took 97 photos before even getting into the air.... Yeah, the more things change, the more they stay the same, or something to that effect!
Looking over France now, I'm entranced by the fluffy cumulous clouds that wander ponderously (not unlike the citizens below them) and I like seeing the shadows they create. I figure I'll keep updating this email with new things I want to add until I'm able to send. If it becomes too long... oh well. It's 5:22 AM PST (I haven't fixed my watch) and in an hour or so I think we'll reach Frankfurt. After a frenzy of photo taking and perhaps some shopping, I'll tack on the next paragraph to this monstrousity.
Well, it's now 2:15 post meredian time on Saturday July 9th here in hot and humid New Delhi, India. I'm sitting here typing this e-mail from the comfort of our air conditioned room in my Nana and Nani's (vocab: Nana - Hindi for maternal grandfather; Nani - Hindi for maternal grandmother) house. Let me rewind and tell you what happened since the last paragraph. Our stopover in Frankfurt was pretty short, only an hour, so I wasn't able to see much. I liked looking down over the countryside flying over the Rhine, and I know I want to visit the place one day. At the stop I learned about the terrorist attacks on London, and looking back I suspect we were probably going over right around the time the explosions occurred. Scary.I got some sleep as we flew over and a short 9 hours or so later we landed on Indian soil.
Stepping off the plane you get the ineffable feeling of being in India, an experience unlike any other. Maybe it's because New Delhi is the 2nd most polluted city in the world, but you can literally smell the difference. One thing about India I really like and noticed right off the plane is the extravagance. I mean, there are fancy statues and everything has marble floors. We were recieved by my Satish mama and Kiran Massi (vocab: mama - maternal uncle, massi - maternal aunt at about 5 ante meredian (sorry, I can't resist) and drove home. I know a number of you at home would love to drive here (AKJain, Michelle, et al) as much as me. According to my massi, before 6 am traffic lights are suggestions so we easily and without hesitation ran a few red lights. Also there are no lanes, just a Darwinian free for all mixture of cars, buses, trucks, three-wheelers, and scooters/motorcycles, so we were dodging and weaving with almost reckless abandon. It was a felicitous start to a promising trip. Anyway, I have to go to the train now, so I'll continue the tale in the next paragraph!
I just was presented with the beautiful sight of people shitting over the side of the rails. Luckily this is one of those things I find easy to forget. What am I doing at a rail station? I'm on my way to Chandigarh via train to visit my Rajan mama, Preeti mami (vocab: mami - maternal uncle's wife), and my cousins. Well, so we have been up to surprisingly much in these two days. Just yesterday we visited my father's family, specifically baba (vocab: baba - paternal grandfather) and cousins. It was pretty cool because afterwards we went to the place my dad grew up in a place called Charag Delhi, which was an interesting experience. It definitely made me appreciate the luxuries I have, and even recognize the comforts Riverside offers. And it pains me to say that, it really does. After that we went out to a dinner with the family that was in Delhi, which was basically nana, nani, Massi, her husband who I call Krishan uncle, cousins Pooja and Shweta, and others. We got back to our place around 10:30 and I crashed by 11 pm.
7/9
Today I started off with going to a local temple (Kalka Ji mandir [vocab: mandir - a Hindu temple]) that my dad's family actually holds a stake in. The system involved is kinda weird, but is not pertinent to this discussion. My dad showed me the place where he would go up to climb on top of a roof to study back in the day. Anyway, the mandir was very crowded with patrons, guards, and beggers. An interesting thing I've noticed at both the Indira Gandhi International airport and here at this mandir was the presence of metal detectors and guards with large and painful looking automatic weapons with no apparent affiliation for one another. Let me clarify... the guards didn't even look up when the detector would go off and everyone just passed through beep or no beep, caring just as little. I guess the attitude most of my Indian brethren espouse is "chill" (that means "chillz" Omid, if you're reading this). Anyway, I took a number of pictures of the mess there. I didn't really take many photos of the statues, but they were pretty nice. Detailed and huge. After that we went shopping with my Massi followed by more shopping with Satish mama and then finally got on the train for Ambala. We headed off into north-western parts of India traveling through many rice fields and small villages for the purpose of meeting up with my Rajan mama, and his family. We drove an hour from there to the city of Patiala in the most famous state of Punjab to visit my Rajan mama, who is stationed there as a Brigadier in the Indian army. Right now I am stationed in my uncle's bedroom which we have annexed as our own since it's large enough for two beds and has an air conditioner (ugh, sorry!). Tomorrow there will be more traveling, to Simla, which is a hill station (vocab: hill station - a resort town).
7/10 - 7/11
These past two days have been a bit hectic (which is why I didn't put in an entry yesterday) with a lot of driving to get to the hill station. Luckily the army graciously allowed my uncle to take two drivers so we're all going relatively relaxed. We have ended up in a private army resort in a town called Subathu by way of a scenic town called Kausoli. We are staying in this resort thanks to Rajan mama's big wig position in the army, and it's a pretty sweet deal. We have a swimming pool, tennis courts, and perhaps more pertinent to the athletically underachieving such as myself, ping pong. The panoramic view overlooks hills, clouds, and small villages. The next day we went to Simla, another 2 hour plus drive, on winding one lane roads that are meant to support two way traffic. It's a bit scary at times, I'll tell you. I didn't mention this before maybe, but driving in India is a little insane and quite a bit different than back at home. Honking horns is not only condoned, but it considered good road etiquette since it promotes safety... or something. Anyway, we went up to a place called Kufri (elevation 8000 feet) before backtracking to Simla. I don't want to get into the gory details, but it has been pretty fun. It rained a bit and weather has been very pleasant; not hot at all! Good times, good times.
7/12
Today was more of the same but there were a few unique happenings so it's worth reading and writing about. We visited Solan, which was on the way to our final destination of Chail. It was a long drive to get there, around 3 hours, but in reaching the town we reached our goal of visiting the three important cities in this area (the other two being Simla and Kufri). A bit of history knowledge Rajan mama provided me with worth noting, I think, is that Chail was established by the maharaja of Patiala in response to the British not allowing him into Simla for vacation because he defied them. Anyway, we stopped for lunch at Cedaar Hotel, a nice pink building on the edge of the hill, in Chail. We ordered outside and were sitting outside because the weather was very pleasant and it was nice being outdoors, though the people working there told us they would only give us food outside. We found out soon exactly why that was. You see, scampering all over this place like they owned it were monkeys. One bold little primate, who I suspect was the alpha male, actually walked right up to the jeep and jumped through the window, took food, and escaped before the guards could get at it. The monkey actually stole some toffees that belonged to Aditya, my cousin, and I think he enjoyed them because he wasn't deterred by the guards threatening gestures and such. The monkey actually walked right up to my mom towards her bag, probably in search for food, and when she grabbed the bag away, it went apeshit on her. The little monster bared his teeth and put his mouth to my mom's shoulder but thankfully didn't bite. He did scratch her arm though in the process enough to leave some marks and cause pain. I don't think anything came of it, but we went inside immediately after that for obvious reasons. After a delicious meal we went and took my mom to some local doctor who prescribed her a tetanus shot and some antibiotics just in case. After that we continued on, troopers that we are, and visited the world's highest cricket pitch where my Rajan mama played some 30 odd years ago. I got my picture taken by the sign and everything, so it was pretty neat. That's pretty much it; tomorrow we'll be heading down from these mountains and back to the heat of Punjab. Until then!
7/13 - 7/15
These days I've just been doing more traveling. On the 13th I went from our rooms of three days (the longest single stay at a place we've had since landing) at Subathu back to Chandigarh, where my mami's family lives. They were visiting Calcutta so my parents, mama, mami, and cousin Aditya had the place to ourselves to spend the night at. We didn't really do much there... just drove around to see the large houses, like the chief minster of both Haryana and Punjab. Chandigarh is the only city that serves as the state capital of two states, thats why there were two chief minister homes there. We also visited a market and saw a movie that I think was roughly based on Catch Me If You Can called Bunty Aur Bubly. It was an okay movie... well not really... the high point was Aishwarya Rai's cameo dance performance. While at the house I picked up Robert Ludlum's Paris Option and rapidly devoured it. It's a good book, I recommend it if you're into international spy thriller novels.
The following day on the 14th me and the parents took an early train from Ambala (an hour drive) to Amritsar (train ride of 3 hours). Amritsar is home to the Golden Temple, a famous gurudwara (sp?) (vocab: gurudawara - a Sikh temple). It is called the Golden Temple because the inner temple is basically made of gold. It was pretty amazing. I have taken a number of pictures that can better describe the place better than I can; a thousand words and all that jazz. It is very beautifully done though, with the outer temple being largely marble with some gold guilding in the front, intricate carving everywhere, and of course lest you forget, the gold. Our driver there was arranged by Rajan mama so it was a nice mitilary fellow, who let me hold his gun (what to me seemed like an automatic assault rifle) at the train session and take a couple of pictures. Good stuff. It was another 3 hour train ride back to Ambala and we drove from there to Patiala, which took about 2 hours, so I think we spent almost twice as long traveling to Amritsar as we spent there (4 hours there versus 9 hours transit). I'd say it was worth it though. All this driving has brought to my attention some peripheral things about India that I love: the greenery and the crowds. Everywhere you go there are people walking the streets and crowds, quite unlike home and perhaps like New York, and there are trees lining every street
Today, the 15th, has been a day of relaxation at long last. My parents went out shopping and took my mom to the doctor. As it turns out, the stupid people in Chail that gave my mom the tetanus shot screwed it up and now she has an infection there. It's all red and messed up. I'll have medical microbiology next block, but from my inexpert analysis I think it may be cellulitis or something of that sort. I don't know, but I hope the antibiotics fix it up. The rest of the day was spent playing Worms Armageddon with Aditya, or when he was doing his own thing, playing some Solitaire. Funny kids, these... Aditya returned from the park angry about some guy picking a fight with him over some alleged gossip. Things seemed heated for a while when he came back vowing revenge. I never had those kinds of memories, leading peaceful type of life that I do. Anyway, tonight there are some guests coming over so I have to get ready.
7/16
Today I got up at 5:45 to get ready for my 6:30 horse ride. It's a lot harder than it looks on TV, I find. Trying to manipulate the beast takes some doing and control that I have yet to develop. After a delicious breakfast, which is really the standard these days, I'm going to go to drive a tank (that's right, I'm going to be in control!) and see my Rajan mama. I hope I have better luck with it than with horse riding, for which I showed very little aptitude. I'm thankful though that I didn't fall down! After the horse riding we had our customary full breakfast and then it was back on the road. Rajan mama arranged for me to go to the army shooting range where I could fire a pistol. I hit the target 14/15 times, so that's not too bad. The only complaint I have is that there was no silencer and no ear protection. Those bloody things are LOUD! It was definitely fun though, to be able to fancy myself as some kind of maverick. After that they took me for the tank ride. I must say the seating arrangement is pretty cramped in them. I liked the ride but the real thrill came in driving the machine myself. It took a bit to get used to it since tanks are standard shift involving clutches and that stuff which I have little experience with and there is no steering wheel, just levers on either side to turn in each direction. Once I got a hang of it I did it pretty well in my opinion. It was cool; you can go through deep puddles or climb steep hills with ease. I can see why some people may enjoy the feel of those powerful Hummers and big pick up trucks now if you can get a feeling similar to a tank while being street legal. Next up was visiting the Sheesh Mahel (vocab: sheesh - mirror, mahel - palace), the ancient home of the Maharaja of Patiala. I wasn't happy that they don't allow photographs to be taken because there were so many things that I would have liked to show you all. It's pretty much a museum filled with artifacts ranging back from the 10th century, though the palace itself was built in the 1800s. The best part of the place was what was the throne room in my estimation which had walls covered with fine paintings and designs to take advantage of the embedded mirrors. Literally wall to wall and roof to roof. It was a little overwhelming but very nice indeed. We finished our whirlwind tour of Patiala by visiting my Rajan mama's office where we had samosas and watched the Commander in action. Returning home for the last time I played Worms with Aditya for a little bit (being the merciless selfish braggart I am, I thrashed him well) and then prepared to leave for Delhi. Now I'm back in Nana and Nani's home thoroughly tired and ready for a day of rest. Good God y'all! I don't know if anything can compare to the good time Rajan mama showed us. They treated us like kings, and I had a wonderful time in the Punjab.
7/17 - 7/19
Lazy days in Delhi... not much to say. We went back to Saket to visit Dad's family but spent most the time at home with Nana and Nani. I have gone to my Massi's house though, which is where I am finding this wonderful Internet connection, and done a bit of shopping and fine dining. I got some gole guppas (aka pani puri) at long last, something I had been craving for a while. I also got the Harry Potter book as well, which was delightful. The ending was positively devestating... there is no other word for it. I was shocked and appalled with what happened. I liked it a lot. I had to read it by computer light because the AC room is shared with my parents and for some odd reason they like to sleep before midnight. Crazy, huh. My insight on what a wonderfully small world it was came as I listened to Japanese music from my American computer, which also shed light on my British novel that I bought and was reading in India. Good stuff. A few more days of this peace before we are swirled away to Bombay.
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Greetings and salutations from a distant land. I have started this email while flying over Europe and listening to the Clash (I Fought The Law, for any that were wondering, with London Calling queued up). I thought it fitting since specifically I'm over Ireland and will go by London soon enough. Now, before you all start saying that there is no way for me to really tell because when you're a mile high all land looks the same, I know this to be true because there are nifty little screens that tell you cool information regarding not just where we are, but also altitude, speed, time remaining, distance covered, outside temperature, tail wind speeds, etc. It's actually probably better than some of the other programming (CBS sitcom Beck and Indian soap operas aren't my ticket). I'll post a proper photo journal regarding the sequence of this trip as soon as I am able. I took 97 photos before even getting into the air.... Yeah, the more things change, the more they stay the same, or something to that effect!
Looking over France now, I'm entranced by the fluffy cumulous clouds that wander ponderously (not unlike the citizens below them) and I like seeing the shadows they create. I figure I'll keep updating this email with new things I want to add until I'm able to send. If it becomes too long... oh well. It's 5:22 AM PST (I haven't fixed my watch) and in an hour or so I think we'll reach Frankfurt. After a frenzy of photo taking and perhaps some shopping, I'll tack on the next paragraph to this monstrousity.
Well, it's now 2:15 post meredian time on Saturday July 9th here in hot and humid New Delhi, India. I'm sitting here typing this e-mail from the comfort of our air conditioned room in my Nana and Nani's (vocab: Nana - Hindi for maternal grandfather; Nani - Hindi for maternal grandmother) house. Let me rewind and tell you what happened since the last paragraph. Our stopover in Frankfurt was pretty short, only an hour, so I wasn't able to see much. I liked looking down over the countryside flying over the Rhine, and I know I want to visit the place one day. At the stop I learned about the terrorist attacks on London, and looking back I suspect we were probably going over right around the time the explosions occurred. Scary.I got some sleep as we flew over and a short 9 hours or so later we landed on Indian soil.
Stepping off the plane you get the ineffable feeling of being in India, an experience unlike any other. Maybe it's because New Delhi is the 2nd most polluted city in the world, but you can literally smell the difference. One thing about India I really like and noticed right off the plane is the extravagance. I mean, there are fancy statues and everything has marble floors. We were recieved by my Satish mama and Kiran Massi (vocab: mama - maternal uncle, massi - maternal aunt at about 5 ante meredian (sorry, I can't resist) and drove home. I know a number of you at home would love to drive here (AKJain, Michelle, et al) as much as me. According to my massi, before 6 am traffic lights are suggestions so we easily and without hesitation ran a few red lights. Also there are no lanes, just a Darwinian free for all mixture of cars, buses, trucks, three-wheelers, and scooters/motorcycles, so we were dodging and weaving with almost reckless abandon. It was a felicitous start to a promising trip. Anyway, I have to go to the train now, so I'll continue the tale in the next paragraph!
I just was presented with the beautiful sight of people shitting over the side of the rails. Luckily this is one of those things I find easy to forget. What am I doing at a rail station? I'm on my way to Chandigarh via train to visit my Rajan mama, Preeti mami (vocab: mami - maternal uncle's wife), and my cousins. Well, so we have been up to surprisingly much in these two days. Just yesterday we visited my father's family, specifically baba (vocab: baba - paternal grandfather) and cousins. It was pretty cool because afterwards we went to the place my dad grew up in a place called Charag Delhi, which was an interesting experience. It definitely made me appreciate the luxuries I have, and even recognize the comforts Riverside offers. And it pains me to say that, it really does. After that we went out to a dinner with the family that was in Delhi, which was basically nana, nani, Massi, her husband who I call Krishan uncle, cousins Pooja and Shweta, and others. We got back to our place around 10:30 and I crashed by 11 pm.
7/9
Today I started off with going to a local temple (Kalka Ji mandir [vocab: mandir - a Hindu temple]) that my dad's family actually holds a stake in. The system involved is kinda weird, but is not pertinent to this discussion. My dad showed me the place where he would go up to climb on top of a roof to study back in the day. Anyway, the mandir was very crowded with patrons, guards, and beggers. An interesting thing I've noticed at both the Indira Gandhi International airport and here at this mandir was the presence of metal detectors and guards with large and painful looking automatic weapons with no apparent affiliation for one another. Let me clarify... the guards didn't even look up when the detector would go off and everyone just passed through beep or no beep, caring just as little. I guess the attitude most of my Indian brethren espouse is "chill" (that means "chillz" Omid, if you're reading this). Anyway, I took a number of pictures of the mess there. I didn't really take many photos of the statues, but they were pretty nice. Detailed and huge. After that we went shopping with my Massi followed by more shopping with Satish mama and then finally got on the train for Ambala. We headed off into north-western parts of India traveling through many rice fields and small villages for the purpose of meeting up with my Rajan mama, and his family. We drove an hour from there to the city of Patiala in the most famous state of Punjab to visit my Rajan mama, who is stationed there as a Brigadier in the Indian army. Right now I am stationed in my uncle's bedroom which we have annexed as our own since it's large enough for two beds and has an air conditioner (ugh, sorry!). Tomorrow there will be more traveling, to Simla, which is a hill station (vocab: hill station - a resort town).
7/10 - 7/11
These past two days have been a bit hectic (which is why I didn't put in an entry yesterday) with a lot of driving to get to the hill station. Luckily the army graciously allowed my uncle to take two drivers so we're all going relatively relaxed. We have ended up in a private army resort in a town called Subathu by way of a scenic town called Kausoli. We are staying in this resort thanks to Rajan mama's big wig position in the army, and it's a pretty sweet deal. We have a swimming pool, tennis courts, and perhaps more pertinent to the athletically underachieving such as myself, ping pong. The panoramic view overlooks hills, clouds, and small villages. The next day we went to Simla, another 2 hour plus drive, on winding one lane roads that are meant to support two way traffic. It's a bit scary at times, I'll tell you. I didn't mention this before maybe, but driving in India is a little insane and quite a bit different than back at home. Honking horns is not only condoned, but it considered good road etiquette since it promotes safety... or something. Anyway, we went up to a place called Kufri (elevation 8000 feet) before backtracking to Simla. I don't want to get into the gory details, but it has been pretty fun. It rained a bit and weather has been very pleasant; not hot at all! Good times, good times.
7/12
Today was more of the same but there were a few unique happenings so it's worth reading and writing about. We visited Solan, which was on the way to our final destination of Chail. It was a long drive to get there, around 3 hours, but in reaching the town we reached our goal of visiting the three important cities in this area (the other two being Simla and Kufri). A bit of history knowledge Rajan mama provided me with worth noting, I think, is that Chail was established by the maharaja of Patiala in response to the British not allowing him into Simla for vacation because he defied them. Anyway, we stopped for lunch at Cedaar Hotel, a nice pink building on the edge of the hill, in Chail. We ordered outside and were sitting outside because the weather was very pleasant and it was nice being outdoors, though the people working there told us they would only give us food outside. We found out soon exactly why that was. You see, scampering all over this place like they owned it were monkeys. One bold little primate, who I suspect was the alpha male, actually walked right up to the jeep and jumped through the window, took food, and escaped before the guards could get at it. The monkey actually stole some toffees that belonged to Aditya, my cousin, and I think he enjoyed them because he wasn't deterred by the guards threatening gestures and such. The monkey actually walked right up to my mom towards her bag, probably in search for food, and when she grabbed the bag away, it went apeshit on her. The little monster bared his teeth and put his mouth to my mom's shoulder but thankfully didn't bite. He did scratch her arm though in the process enough to leave some marks and cause pain. I don't think anything came of it, but we went inside immediately after that for obvious reasons. After a delicious meal we went and took my mom to some local doctor who prescribed her a tetanus shot and some antibiotics just in case. After that we continued on, troopers that we are, and visited the world's highest cricket pitch where my Rajan mama played some 30 odd years ago. I got my picture taken by the sign and everything, so it was pretty neat. That's pretty much it; tomorrow we'll be heading down from these mountains and back to the heat of Punjab. Until then!
7/13 - 7/15
These days I've just been doing more traveling. On the 13th I went from our rooms of three days (the longest single stay at a place we've had since landing) at Subathu back to Chandigarh, where my mami's family lives. They were visiting Calcutta so my parents, mama, mami, and cousin Aditya had the place to ourselves to spend the night at. We didn't really do much there... just drove around to see the large houses, like the chief minster of both Haryana and Punjab. Chandigarh is the only city that serves as the state capital of two states, thats why there were two chief minister homes there. We also visited a market and saw a movie that I think was roughly based on Catch Me If You Can called Bunty Aur Bubly. It was an okay movie... well not really... the high point was Aishwarya Rai's cameo dance performance. While at the house I picked up Robert Ludlum's Paris Option and rapidly devoured it. It's a good book, I recommend it if you're into international spy thriller novels.
The following day on the 14th me and the parents took an early train from Ambala (an hour drive) to Amritsar (train ride of 3 hours). Amritsar is home to the Golden Temple, a famous gurudwara (sp?) (vocab: gurudawara - a Sikh temple). It is called the Golden Temple because the inner temple is basically made of gold. It was pretty amazing. I have taken a number of pictures that can better describe the place better than I can; a thousand words and all that jazz. It is very beautifully done though, with the outer temple being largely marble with some gold guilding in the front, intricate carving everywhere, and of course lest you forget, the gold. Our driver there was arranged by Rajan mama so it was a nice mitilary fellow, who let me hold his gun (what to me seemed like an automatic assault rifle) at the train session and take a couple of pictures. Good stuff. It was another 3 hour train ride back to Ambala and we drove from there to Patiala, which took about 2 hours, so I think we spent almost twice as long traveling to Amritsar as we spent there (4 hours there versus 9 hours transit). I'd say it was worth it though. All this driving has brought to my attention some peripheral things about India that I love: the greenery and the crowds. Everywhere you go there are people walking the streets and crowds, quite unlike home and perhaps like New York, and there are trees lining every street
Today, the 15th, has been a day of relaxation at long last. My parents went out shopping and took my mom to the doctor. As it turns out, the stupid people in Chail that gave my mom the tetanus shot screwed it up and now she has an infection there. It's all red and messed up. I'll have medical microbiology next block, but from my inexpert analysis I think it may be cellulitis or something of that sort. I don't know, but I hope the antibiotics fix it up. The rest of the day was spent playing Worms Armageddon with Aditya, or when he was doing his own thing, playing some Solitaire. Funny kids, these... Aditya returned from the park angry about some guy picking a fight with him over some alleged gossip. Things seemed heated for a while when he came back vowing revenge. I never had those kinds of memories, leading peaceful type of life that I do. Anyway, tonight there are some guests coming over so I have to get ready.
7/16
Today I got up at 5:45 to get ready for my 6:30 horse ride. It's a lot harder than it looks on TV, I find. Trying to manipulate the beast takes some doing and control that I have yet to develop. After a delicious breakfast, which is really the standard these days, I'm going to go to drive a tank (that's right, I'm going to be in control!) and see my Rajan mama. I hope I have better luck with it than with horse riding, for which I showed very little aptitude. I'm thankful though that I didn't fall down! After the horse riding we had our customary full breakfast and then it was back on the road. Rajan mama arranged for me to go to the army shooting range where I could fire a pistol. I hit the target 14/15 times, so that's not too bad. The only complaint I have is that there was no silencer and no ear protection. Those bloody things are LOUD! It was definitely fun though, to be able to fancy myself as some kind of maverick. After that they took me for the tank ride. I must say the seating arrangement is pretty cramped in them. I liked the ride but the real thrill came in driving the machine myself. It took a bit to get used to it since tanks are standard shift involving clutches and that stuff which I have little experience with and there is no steering wheel, just levers on either side to turn in each direction. Once I got a hang of it I did it pretty well in my opinion. It was cool; you can go through deep puddles or climb steep hills with ease. I can see why some people may enjoy the feel of those powerful Hummers and big pick up trucks now if you can get a feeling similar to a tank while being street legal. Next up was visiting the Sheesh Mahel (vocab: sheesh - mirror, mahel - palace), the ancient home of the Maharaja of Patiala. I wasn't happy that they don't allow photographs to be taken because there were so many things that I would have liked to show you all. It's pretty much a museum filled with artifacts ranging back from the 10th century, though the palace itself was built in the 1800s. The best part of the place was what was the throne room in my estimation which had walls covered with fine paintings and designs to take advantage of the embedded mirrors. Literally wall to wall and roof to roof. It was a little overwhelming but very nice indeed. We finished our whirlwind tour of Patiala by visiting my Rajan mama's office where we had samosas and watched the Commander in action. Returning home for the last time I played Worms with Aditya for a little bit (being the merciless selfish braggart I am, I thrashed him well) and then prepared to leave for Delhi. Now I'm back in Nana and Nani's home thoroughly tired and ready for a day of rest. Good God y'all! I don't know if anything can compare to the good time Rajan mama showed us. They treated us like kings, and I had a wonderful time in the Punjab.
7/17 - 7/19
Lazy days in Delhi... not much to say. We went back to Saket to visit Dad's family but spent most the time at home with Nana and Nani. I have gone to my Massi's house though, which is where I am finding this wonderful Internet connection, and done a bit of shopping and fine dining. I got some gole guppas (aka pani puri) at long last, something I had been craving for a while. I also got the Harry Potter book as well, which was delightful. The ending was positively devestating... there is no other word for it. I was shocked and appalled with what happened. I liked it a lot. I had to read it by computer light because the AC room is shared with my parents and for some odd reason they like to sleep before midnight. Crazy, huh. My insight on what a wonderfully small world it was came as I listened to Japanese music from my American computer, which also shed light on my British novel that I bought and was reading in India. Good stuff. A few more days of this peace before we are swirled away to Bombay.
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