Summer Travel to India – Part V – New Delhi Again

Our final destination this summer was New Delhi again for the third time. This time we had my niece’s birthday to look forward to. She was quite excited about becoming a teenager. The day we got back to New Delhi she was all set to go shopping for some new clothes. An important birthday ritual for Indians is that the birthday person wears new clothes on their birthday. There were five of us, my niece, her parents and her two aunts (me and her mom’s sister). All of us browsed through the store and with the help of a saleslady put together a few outfits for her to try on. In the end we boiled down to four sets that looked good. She was so excited we got her all four of them. She wondered when she would wear them all. My suggestion was she greets her guests to her birthday party in one outfit. Have dinner in another, dessert in yet a third one and then a final change to bid everyone a goodbye. No, that is not what she did.
It was quite late in the evening when the birthday guests arrived so we decided to cut the cake first. My kids were quite excited about the cake as they had tasted it before and knew it would be good. What they were not prepared for was this – my niece cut the cake and as is tradition was fed the first piece of cake. As soon as she took a bite the rest of the piece was smeared all over her face. My youngest thought this was so cool. I think he can’t wait to try this on someone else now. Another fun tradition among kids is the birthday bumps. Where friends grab your arms and legs and swing you in the air and on every down swing they bump you on the floor. You have to endure as many bumps as the number of years in your birthday. My kids thought this was quite funny. My youngest would keep jumping on his cousin and then she would fall to the floor (which I had thankfully asked them to cushion with a mattress). So her bumps turned more into falls. A good time was had by all. (Pic 1: sign at McDonald's)
After the birthday it was mainly wrap-up time in India, figuring out any last minute details, confirming travel plans, and saying goodbyes. After travelling for 5 weeks, it is always good to come home. But after the hustle and bustle of the city and so much family it felt very quiet in Madison. The house feels too big for just the four of us. But after a while as jetlag wears off, we all settle into our routines and life goes on. (Pic 2: Pretty much what Delhi looked like this summer)
Copyright Kalpana Kanwar August 2009

Summer Travel to India – Part IV – Chandigarh and Chail

We continued our summer travels to Chandigarh to visit my Dad. So far all our travels were by air, but we headed off to Chandigarh on the Shatabdi Express train. My kids love the experience of being on a train and it is wonderfully short – only 3 hours to get to Chandigarh. The train is air conditioned and has reasonably comfortable seats that even tilt back a little for extra comfort. If I have any complaints, it is that they don’t stop serving you. As soon as the train sets off, servers come by and give every passenger on board bottled water. After that they come by again to give you some boxed juice, usually apple or mango. Next someone comes by to hand out newspapers to anyone who might want one. Then they swing by and start the real service – serving breakfast (we were on the morning train), this includes bread, butter, jelly, omelet (non-veg option) or vegetable cutlets, couple of biscuits, and tea. Then of course the sweep through to pick up all the items they have served. While all this is going on the ticket collector is walking through checking everyone’s tickets. Then another gentleman follows asking for every passenger to identify their baggage and tagging them all so there is no unidentified baggage on board. We travel through villages and cities and fields. It is quite a pleasant trip and scenic train ride. And by the time all the serving is done, we are just about at our destination.
The day we reached Chandigarh the power was out for 6 hours! Luckily my Dad has an inverter so we could have a fan or two running in the house. But otherwise it was just as hot here as it was in New Delhi with the temperatures in the 40s C (100s F). My Dad told us that this was the first time all summer the power had been disrupted in Chandigarh. Anyhow, this was just too much for me and the very next day we set off to the mountains for cooler air.
We drove for 5 hours to Chail in Himachal Pradesh. It follows the same road to Shimla and just about 20 km short of Shimla it diverts off towards Chail. Shimla is a major city and capital of Himachal, it is also a major tourist attraction, so it is crowded with traffic and people. Chail on the other hand is just a quiet little town with a population of less than 10,000. Chail has beautiful pine and deodar forests surrounding it. There is a sanctuary near Chail so the areas surrounding it remain undeveloped. Chail’s claim to fame is they have a cricket ground at the highest altitude. (Pic 1: view from our lodge)
We stayed at a resort run by Himachal Tourism (I completely recommend any hotels run by them) that was at one time the palace of Maharaja of Patiala called the Rajgarh Palace. Since they are the palace grounds the resort itself is a charming campus with beautiful lawns and spectacular views and separate from the town.
The Maharaja of Patiala, Bhupinder Singh, was expelled from Shima by the British. He took it as a challenge and found a small village which was within sight of Shima, in a beautiful location and most importantly was at a slightly higher elevation than Shimla. So he was able to look down his nose at the British from his new amazing Palace.
When we reached Chail the weather could not have been more perfect, it was cool and pleasant. My kids finally came alive and were running about and enjoying the openness and the open air. The deodars surrounding us kept the mountain air fresh. When we booked the rooms at the palace hotel, we learned that there were no rooms available in the original palace building, but if we were willing to stay in one of their lodges on the palace grounds we could get rooms right away. I wasn’t going to wait to get out of the heat, so we took a couple of rooms in the lodge and it turned out to be a wonderful decision. At the lodge we had our own little courtyard overlooking a beautiful valley. Since it was away from the main Palace Hotel there weren’t as many guests and staff about. In fact, everyone at the lodge felt quite comfortable coming out in our pajamas to breathe in the fresh morning air everyday. It would have been perfect if we could have our morning tea in the courtyard as well. But there are lots of monkeys that live in these forests and will grab any food that is out there. So we had to drink our teas in our rooms.
We would walk up a mountain trail to get to the Palace Hotel where the only restaurant in the resort was located. The food was simple and well prepared. If anyone is familiar with Himachali food, you will know that it is healthy, nutritious, tasteful, but not spicy. So this was one time, both my kids ate well. This was great for me considering there are no McDonalds or Dominos nearby.
On the way between the Palace and the lodge is a children’s park. We never saw any of the families from the resort visit this park, but we made it a regular haunt during our three days in Chail. My kids loved it and loved that kids from the town came to play too. They town kids were fascinated by my kids and would play near them. By day three, they were so familiar with us that when I took pictures they would ask me to take theirs too. They loved to see their pictures on my camera and posed for more. (Pic 2: children's park and local kids)
One evening we stayed until dusk at the park. The local kids and their families headed back home taking a mountain trail back home and needed to do it with daylight. Then it was just us in the park and even as we watched the monkeys from the deodar trees started slowly making their way into the park. I guess when the people leave the park belongs to the monkeys.
The first night in Chail it rained. This brought the temperatures down even more. I got a little worried. Here we were escaping the heat and my kids and I did not have any long pants or long sleeved shirts. Luckily there was never any breeze (I don’t know if this is typical of mountain areas) and so after a very short while we were used to the cooler temperatures – we are from Wisconsin afterall. On the second day, my only slippers with me in Chail started to show a tear and I thought I would have to buy new footwear. We set off to the town nearby to get a few snacks to keep in the hotel room for the kids and to repair my slippers or buy something new. We found a mochi (cobbler) who fixed my slipper for Rs. 10 (about 25 cents). What a deal! (Pic 3: the mochi in town)
Then it was time to head back to Chandigarh. Luckily during the one day we spent there the power stayed on. My Dad’s house – my youngest calls this the Gate House – is right across from a park. The kids enjoyed playing there in the evenings, and I enjoyed watching the neighborhood kids play cricket. The teams are fluid as kids come and go during the evening. Disputes happen, they resolve them and the game goes on. My kids will never experience anything like that in the US where everything is so structured. (Pic 4: kids at the park in Chandigarh)
Copyright Kalpana Kanwar August 2009

Summer Travel to India – Part III – New Delhi

Further continuing our summer travels and we headed back to New Delhi. The best part of New Delhi is that my kids have lots of cousins to play with there. But the terrible part of New Delhi this year was the heat wave. The last time I endured such scorching temperatures in New Delhi was in 1998. And if the temperatures weren’t bad enough, there were power outages - sometimes two or three times a day. When the temperatures hit 43C (110F) on a regular basis even the air conditioner can barely make it tolerable. And when there is no power at all, you can’t do much of anything but just loll around and want to pant like dogs.
So during those evenings when there was no power, we took the time to walk around in the parks. My in-laws’ house is at an amazing location. It is a corner lot and is surrounded by 3 parks. So much space and greenery just outside your windows is quite a unique setting. My in-laws were also one of the first ones to build their house here and planted quite a few trees in the parks so they feel pride seeing them so tall and bearing fruit or flowers.
In New Delhi, we ate out in some fancy restaurants like Oye Punjab, where the interiors are quite grand. This one has an interior fountain, but we had to pay the price for space the fountain took by having tables that are put close together. So close, that you feel you could have conversations with the people at the next table. The food was ok, but pricy. I guess we did pay for the ambiance.
In contrast, we took our in-laws to celebrate their 5oth wedding anniversary to Oh! Calcutta – also another fancy restaurant. I have never eaten Bengali food before, but my family claimed it was great food. The wonderful part of this restaurant was that it was not crowded (maybe because it was a weekday). The tables were not closely placed so even if it had been a busy night we would still have had a wonderful dinner.
Some of the restaurants I truly enjoyed were not so expensive and the food was great. We ate some great South Indian food (great for New Delhi) and some wonderful Indo-Chinese food. Even my kids tried some of these foods. We still had to track down Dominos and McDonalds for them though.
In addition to eating out we also shopped in New Delhi. In the past, we have done the mall thing. This time we pretty much stayed away from them, except to get McDonalds for the kids. (Pic 1: one of the malls in New Delhi) We braved the heat and visited such shopping areas like Janpath and Khan Market where they have little stalls with clothes, kitchenware, fake jewelry, and whatnot. There are tiny lanes created with all these shops, if my sister-in-law hadn’t been with me, I would still be walking around in there trying to find my way out.
It seems like we did a lot of shopping in India, which is really not the case. One major shopping item on my list was a wedding gift for my mother-in-law. As I mentioned earlier it was their 50th wedding anniversary – Gold Anniversary. So I set off to look at some gold jewelry for her. Have you seen gold prices these days, I couldn’t find anything that looked halfway decent and within my budget and my budget wasn’t too shabby either. Anyhow, after looking at several jewelry stores both big and small, I ended up buying her a diamond and gold bracelet. Hard to believe that a diamond and gold bracelet fit my budget, but a plain gold bracelet wouldn’t.
I also went to a Sangeet (pre-wedding song party). The ladies came in colorful sarees (I got to wear my new one from Indore). The Sangeet is an event for family and close friends only. There were about a 100 guests at the Sangeet which was held out on the front lawn. Seating was arranged around the lawn. One end of the lawn was set up as a buffet. In the center was a stage. The entertainment was set up as two parts – first, a lady called on various family members and sang songs about them or their importance to the family. She was so spontaneous it was amazing. For later, a DJ was set up with a dance floor and in between these was a show with a fire thrower. It was still warm in the evening, and there were fans set around the yard misting the air to cool it. As we were leaving the party, two young men beat drums to bid us adieu. (Pic 2: Mehndi (henna) at the Sangeet)
Copyright Kalpana Kanwar August 2009

Summer Travel to India – Part II – Indore

Continuing our summer travels, in less than a week we set off for Indore to visit my elder sister and her family. I have not been to this part of the country before. Visiting her was also another pleasant surprise. Both my sister and her husband are faculty at a dental college and live in faculty housing on the campus. The campus is about 10 km away from the city of Indore and set midst some fields.
Bombay is densely built and crowded, but it was a homecoming and had its own joy. Indore (at least where my sister lives) has wide open spaces and beautiful fields and campus. It was pretty hot in Indore so we spent a lot of time indoors – either at home, in cars or in malls/shops.
I decided to skip any sightseeing in Indore, as I could barely tolerate the heat. So instead we went shopping. One of the first shops we went to was a music store. I asked the store owner for recommendations and she would pull different CDs off the shelf. If I was unsure of her selection, she would ask one of the workers at the store to put it on their music system. So needless to say, I left with quite a collection of CDs. Am I soft touch or what? I also bought some fun jewelry and finally a beautiful saree.
To buy the saree we first went to a couple of designer saree shops. The sarees are priced exorbitantly and I couldn’t really determine the “design” part of them. The salespeople claim, their beauty is in the wearing, yet they don’t pull out a single saree and show you how it would look draped. I wonder how they stay in business. If you ever visit a regular saree shop in India, you know they open just about any saree you want to have a look at; they even encourage you to drape it on yourself to see if you like the color or they will drape it on themselves so you can see how the pattern shows. It is from one these shops that I found a beautiful saree for myself.
We also visited a mall (western style) in Indore, where you get a mix of both Western and Indian clothing where one style is available in different sizes. Just like shopping in the US. The malls are attractively built and I loved them for their air conditioning. Another great part of the mall for me was I could buy McDonalds or Dominos pizzas for my kids, who don’t eat Indian food – I know it is sacrilegious. (Pic: street view from the mall entrance)
On the last day of our stay in Indore my sister was going out of town regarding work and was happy to leave because by then, her husbands and daughters were all caught in rearranging some furniture in their apartment, which she hates doing. I on the other hand love rearranging furniture, so I was happy to lend a hand. After doing some work on their daughters’ room, we rearranged her whole kitchen. Here is a picture when everything was pulled off the shelves.

Copyright Kalpana Kanwar August 2009