India
India tidbits: napkins, mosques, matrimonials, head-shaking
I have another half hour to kill before our ride to the airport, and the keyboard is working again, so here is an absolutely unorganized buffet of India travel tidbits:
Absorbency is not a chief value of local “paper” napkins, which look American-normal but are made of an impenetrable waxy paper whose primary talents lie in [...]
Bollywood masala: Jab We Met
Dear lovely people,
Here’s a quick note to say I’m leaving Bombay tonight at midnight. I’ll head to the airport around 8:30. All is well, my stomach is reasonably functional again, and since everyone else left town this morning, and we checked out of our hotel rooms at noon, Linda (Tracy’s mom) and I [...]
henna typing
dear all,
you should see the hands i’m typing with. palms deep red with intricate henna designs, and a swoosh of dotty leafy patterns crossing the back of the hand and going up my index finger. i have to put the keyboard in my lap so as not to be distracted by my manual [...]
Delhi: marigolds, Humayun’s Tomb, India Gate, cows
A few more bits and pieces:
Leis of marigolds are seen everywhere: hanging from rearview mirrors; draped over small Ganesh statues on the hotel desks; looped in drying brown garlands over certain limbs of certain trees. Offerings; invocations of good luck; something like that.
Cows amble along the streets, inured to traffic and pavement and noise, [...]
Traffic in Delhi, plus observations of smoke
A few observations on Delhi traffic and atmosphere:
Traffic in Delhi was nuts in a way that was new to me. It consists of a crazy multiplicity of vehicle types: cars, trucks, buses, bicycles, motorcycles, pedicabs, auto-rickshaws, horse-drawn carts. (Auto-rickshaws have a sort of flimsy canopied golf cart frame over a small motorcycle or scooter [...]
Just arrived on the overnight train to Mumbai
Dear lovely people,As usual I have only a couple minutes on a computer – this time in the Royal Inn lobby in Mumbai as we wait for our new room to be cleaned. Very shortly we’ll be picked up to attend Lalit’s cousin’s thread ceremony, which is some sort of manhood ritual. I [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Defense Colony: birds & dogs (& the Taj Mahal)
Dear all,
We are staying in a middle-class community, a neighborhood called Defense Colony, so named because it was at some point housing for lots of military-affiliated families. We have a third-floor flat with access to an intimate roof terrace equipped with a score of potted plants and a nice view of neighboring rooftops. For those [...]
Delhi hello: feasting & fire
Lovely people!
This is only the second moment I have been able to get on a computer (or indeed sit down, or so it seems) in 4 days. It is midnight and we have just come back from an elaborate dinner at Lalit’s uncle’s house. When I say “we,” I mean Tracy, Lalit, Tracy’s [...]
