Got up ridiculously early as is my wont to hit the airport. (I adhere to my grandfather's Gotta Be Somewhere policy.) I said goodbye to Chris, who I really will miss immensely - the perfect human combination of English charm and wry, polite willingness to go anywhere and do anything. I was absolutely touched by his willingness to get up early to see me off, bleary eyes and all. Chris, if you're reading this, please please please stay in touch: you're absolutely one of the most charming humans I've ever met and I valued every minute of your company - your steadying influence on my admittedly rash and unthinking self was a godsend, and no one can make me laugh harder when it comes to making subtle, spot on comments on the nature of the universe. Whenever I find myself in England again, I will make a point of coming to bother you in your little English village (or generate doubtless unwelcome trouble within it.) Also, I'd love to try some of your family soap......(i will always value the lovely elephant from Goa: try not to crash the bitchin' rickshaw too early.)

I also saw off Kasey who, a humanitarian, gifted me his last pack of America fruit-flavored chewing gum. He may never fully comprehend how happy that made me.

The airport was quite close to good old Thippasandra, so the ride was quick: I ended up spending a few hours dozing off waiting to board my JetAir flight to Delhi. The airplane itself was surpisingly nice, nicer and newer then most US planes, with an individual inflight entertainment system and everything. (On Southwest you pay more money for stale peanuts and horrible attempts at inflight humor by the stewardesses, so no complaints here.)

I love watching the enviroment change as I descend into a new city: Delhi was profoundly different from congested Bangalore, all spread out with slightly scrubby terrain, red brick buildings giving way to palatial government palaces and humongous Mughal monuments. We mae a good landing, and I met my Auntie Sheilie at the airport.

Auntie Sheilie and her husband, Baldev, were best friends with my grandparents back in their Dow Chemical days. By way of explaination, my grandparents are to some margin the reason I am here in India and why I am so addicted to Asian travel: they gave the damn idea in the first place. I spent my early childhood at their big Florida house full of bewitching Chinese, Korean, and Indian artifacts: little metalwork fish and paintings of tigers and inlaid Kashmiri daggers: I would sit at their feet as we all ate dinner out of wooden bowls in their living room as they talked about India (and you could hear the nostalgic, profound affection there in their voices) - the train journeys and the sandal-wood scented boats in Kashmir, the game reserves and terrifying langur monkeys, bathing ghats and water buffalo: of course I had to go. It's a bloody cliche but I read Kim at their house about two years ago and determined that after I saw China, India would have to be next.

Now, Auntie Sheilie was everything I expected her to be: the Indian mirror image of my voraciously intellectual and eminently classy grandparents. We were immediately discusing authors and books of all stripes as soon as we met (she ushering me into her private car and contemplating me on my dress). It was like picking up a conversation with my grandmother, really, and it was a lovely thing indeed - she pointing out various neighborhoods and boroughs of Delhi as we proceeded to the India International Centre where she had booked me a room. My first impression of Delhi was, I'm afraid, the bourgeois side: Delhi looked to be all wide open avenues and leafy tree-lined streets, almost deserted compared to the omnipresent scrum that is Bangalore. There were rickshaws and cows and dogs here too, of course, but they all seemed curiously controlled - not mashing up against each other (delightfully I must say) as in Bangalore. I'm certain Delhi is certifiably bug-fuck insane in other neighborhoods, but the Golf LInks neighrobhood houses Delhi's upper crust: no one-eyed leprosy ridden snake charmers here, I am sorry, Salman Rushdie.....

We drove to the India Interational Center, which is apparantly a famous locale for Indian intellectuals - Shiela's daughter, Deepha, is a member. It's a deeply 60's mod sort of building and I loved it immediately, with wide open grounds full of green flitting parakeets and hawks, wealthy male and female businessmen conferring quietly on the grounds, sipping omnipresent tumblers of gin and tonic. Sheila treated me to lunch at the club, which was startlingly inexpensive and wonderful - tender, lemony fish tikka, delicious and earthy saag, dal makhani (yum) and tasty little rotis. I discovered to my immense pleasure that northern India serves my beloved, beloved peach chutney tableside with every meal. I am buying huge quantities and bullying it through customs.

(Sheila told me that my grandfather once, when asked to give his fathers name by the Indian authorities for some godforsaken reason on a customs issue, bristled and answered "Jesus Christ!" I do not disbelieve it.)


(That is the great pleasure of meeting people your family knew and loved from far away: you triangulate these people you have known and loved yourself for so long, interpret them through another viewpoint, see them through the vantage of someone else's time and experience. And they are not there to deny anything!)

I had a lovely nap and shower (good lord, but it is nice to use a shower and not have to worry about the water shorting out, to sleep and not have to worry about mosquitos and sudden drunken intrusions.....admittedly, I was the direct root of many Katary drunken-intrusions but still...)

We went out to a nice sanitized variant of the bazaars I knew and loved from Bangalore. Sheila had a trusted pashmina vendor and since I'd lost my beloved Chinese pashmina in Mysore, I needed a new one. (Sheila insisted losing something was good luck, but I still adored that thing, and it's the only souvenir I have from China since I never buy things....) In any case, I selected two lovely red ones - one expensive and one not so so - for myself. I then focused on the main attraction, which was finding lovely blue ones for my mom. I found her a vibrant turquoise variant and a lovely embroidered blue one that Sheila picked out herself - hopefully she'll love them. (You better!) (I know you're reading this!) (We looked for a water buffalo but couldn't find one.....would you settle for a Nandi....or a tiger Christmas ornament....?) We managed to get all four gorgeous pashminas for 5000 rupees, which, if you know Indian money, is one hell of a deal.

Pashminas, by the way, are some of the most wonderful and versastile clothing items know to man - and the fact that they are breathtakingly beautiful in most cases is just icing on the cake. A pashmina can add exotic appeal to an evening gown, jazz up a gungy jeans and t-shirts combo, cover embarassing curry stains, be used as a blanket, a towel, or (if feeling inventive) perhaps a noose or an escape rope. I wear my pashmina quite often back home in the USA and I suggest you do the same.

We passed by the gorgeous Lodhi Gardens to have a stroll and pick up Deepa. The gardens are breathtaking, slightly reminescent of the public gardens I recall from Rome: an arresting mixture of ancient architecutre and modern, perfectly manicured greenery. Joggers wove in and out of the night-lit Mughal tombs that lit up atmospherically as the sun went down. I popped my head in the black, curving entrance of one of the tombs, viewing the occupants black monolithic cenotaph slumbering quietly inside:

I wonder about how it is to spend eternity in a park like this - did they anticipate it would be a minor tourist attraction, that joggers would go by and couples make goo-goo eyes at each other on blankets on the grass outside, that there is no such thing as solitude in public places in the time after death? Or is that what they wanted - this sort of lively company during the day and in the quiet going-down hours, when living people are spooked by wandering around in ancient tombs - do they appreciate the downtime, the quiet?

But of course I do not believe in life after death.

We found the lovely Deepha (who is making a deeply impressive recovery from breast cancer while studying for exams), then went back to Golf Links for dinner. I also met Rajev, Sheila and Baldev's son, who has made an impressive recovery from a brain tumor in his younger days and is now a delight to be around - we happily discussed various Indian authors over dinner. (Both he and Sheila are trying to get me to read Ayn Rand. Watch out, mom. Watch out.)

Sheila and Baldev's white and lovely home was deja-vu for me: an Indian mirror image of my grandparents house, with reciprocal art objects and trinkets that they had exchanged with each other sitting on tables, pictures of my family and there's interspersed among them. (I loved seeing the little clackety metal fish that fascinated me so at three years old sitting on the table: I shall have to buy a couple.) Sheila loves Bob Dylan, so we put him on for a bit then switched to Indian flute music as we chatted. She poured me a generous tumbler of Teacher's which I accepted (like one wandering through the desert) - it was an absolute revelation after too many weeks of Old Monk.

We had a lovely dinner prepared by Sheila's kitchen staff - leg of mutton, organic beans raised at the family farm, kuchamber salad with a little bit of lemon, garlic, and olive oil, and my beloved gobi mutter, along with bewitching little wheat rotis that emitted puffs of steam when punctured. We finished off with incredibly good alphonso mango and papaya for dessert along with some little jewel like beads of pomegranate - sublime.

I was deposited at the International Centre by the chauffeur and had a most excellent sleep in my highly air conditioned room. Sometimes it is nice to return to the good life.