A Return to India

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It took me too long to get back to India.  My last visit was in early 2004 and I've missed the color, the chaos, the gracious people, the opportunities to meet face-to-face with my colleagues there  -   and the food.  Finally, in December, 2006, time was ripe for me to meet with the team again.

I left Kansas on a Thursday evening and for a while it looked as if I might not make it to India after all. The first snow of the season had fallen the night before and my flight to Newark was initially posted 3-1/2 hours late. That was less than handy since 3-1/2 hours was all the time I had to make my connection to the nonstop to Delhi. But, quite unexpectedly the posting changed.  We were allowed to board and take off, only ninety minutes late. My guess is that the airline decided to commandeer an earlier inbound plane rather than having a pile of people with missed international connections in Newark.

So, I arrived in Delhi on schedule Friday night.  Well, it was actually still Friday morning in my Central Standard Time brain but I just try to get plenty of sunlight in the daytime and try not to think what time it is back in Kansas. 

On Saturday, two of my local colleagues and I went out sightseeing. We went first to The Cottage Industries Emporium (Click here to visit their website) which offers a huge assortment of items handmade in India, and then to Mehrason Jewellers (where one of my colleagues claims I broke the world speed record for jewelry-buying) And, finally, we visited a Sikh gurudwara and the Red Fort.

The view from my hotel room at the Hyatt Regency looked out on a major roadway. The small yellow vehicles in the background are taxi rickshaws and it's amazing how many people can pile into them (and hang on the outside).

This is the outside of the gurudwara. Inside, the Kirtan, or singing of hymns from the Guru Granth Sahib, continues 24 hours a day. We stepped inside for a few minutes before continuing on. Click here for a link to a live audio feed from Kirtan at a gurudwara in Amritsar. The language is ancient Punjabi.

Here I am near the gurudwara pool. The scarf was required apparel; Anyone who enters the gurudwara area must cover their heads... and also walk barefoot.

It was nice to revisit the Red Fort. I had gone there on the first day of my first trip (the fact that I'd ventured out on my own on my first day in India was still the talk of the office). The Red Fort was built by Shah Jehan between 1638 and 1648, and included halls for private and public audiences, a mosque and elaborately designed gardens. At one time it housed the famous Peacock Throne, which cost twice as much to create as did the entire Taj Mahal.

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