Delhi

I didn't realize how cold Austria had been until I got to Delhi. And I don't just mean the weather. Apparently the Viennese are famous for being reserved to the point of rudeness, but it is hard to get used to. For example, when I went to the ticket counter at the trainstation and tried to buy a ticket in my best German, the clerk seemed really annoyed that I was bothering him.

Pratishtha and her family are about as far from that as you can get. I'm staying with Pratishtha and her husband, Saurabh, in their condo in the suburbs. It's a very nice house by Delhi standards, with a full kitchen, two bedrooms and two bathrooms. They have also done it up very nicely since I saw it at the wedding, though there is surprisingly little hot pink involved in the color scheme, given what I know of Pratishtha's tastes. I even have a bedroom to myself, since Saurabh's mother is out of town this week.

Yesterday Pratishtha dropped me off at her mother's house before going to the University (where she is working on a MA in Italian). They talked me into taking a nap for a few hours. When I got up, Pratishtha's Mummi showed me how to make a kind of fried bread called Paranthas, and we had them for lunch with some spicy eggplant. She seems a little shy about the amount of English she knows, so we don't really talk too much, but I love being with her.

Then she and I went to the largest of Delhi's Gandhi museums. It was mostly photographs and text summaries (Hindi and English) housed in a fairly run-down building. They also had, displayed in glass cases, what were definitely relics: his glasses, the clothes he had been wearing when he died, wool yarn he had spun, books he had read. There was also a collection of spinning wheels, which introduced me to his economic philosophy, which you don't hear so much about in the US. After the museum we went across to Raj Ghat, where he was cremated, then Pratishtha picked us up and we went home.

Later that evening Pratishtha's Mummi presented me with a beautiful silk salwar kameez. Thinking it must be one of here own or Pratishtha's I tried to say I couldn't take it, and that it was too beautiful for the kind of travelling I was going to be doing. She explained that in fact she had had made for me before I came, and finished off by saying in very plain English, "You too are my daughter."

I suppose I brought a larger backpack precisely so that I could bring these kind of memories home.