Christmas Blogging

I dream of being a successful blogger but would have to do it more frequently. We've just had a hair-raising drive down Interstate 90 from Madison to Chicago and Evanston - snow all the way. We divided up the driving - with windshield wipers that preferred staying frozen. But we are safely home - and so happy to have had a week of celebrations with all our beloved family ... here are some pictures ...

CPR Training and Things

Yesterday, Friday, September 11, 2009, all my staff (except Louis the cook) had CPR and first aid training. It took me back to my years at the University of Iowa College of Nursing (1972-79) when I supervised the young nursing faculty who taught all the basic nursing skills. We certified hundreds of nursing students in CPR. I think we had 3 Resusci-Annies. Yesterday Dr. Mahesh and nurse Deepak had a half-Resusci-Annie and a Resusci-Baby. It was interesting to realize that I still know the basics and to learn the new routine - 2 breaths and 30 compressions. With any luck I'll never have to use it. My staff were fascinated as none of them had been trained before. We took advantage of the opportunity to take staff photographs - here we are ...
And the we posed with the Doctor and nurse...

Update on the Drainage Ditch

The drainage ditch project is of endless interest to us because we have to navigate around all the construction debris every time we come and go. It appears to almost be done. The mother of all the little children thinks I am nuts taking pictures of her kids. She was wearing a sparkly navy-blue sari the other day, sitting on our driveway nursing the baby when I got home. Here are the kids playing a game with stones -
It is almost complete with edging and cementing nearly done. They've put a cement sort of apron across the front between the ditch and the road as well. There is a place where a water pipe has been broken, making a little natural spring sort of thing by the gate. People used to come early in the morning with containers to get free, clear water. It's all been built into the whole ditch now - we watched the mason brick in a little channel so it runs into the ditch underground. It will be a disappointment to those who relied on it. One of the last mornings before they covered it up this man was sitting in the puddle it created taking his morning bath.

Children of the Laborers

They are rebuilding the drainage ditch outside the wall of our house, which is also the edge of the Neeti Bagh gated community. It has involved weeks of manual labor, digging sewage out of the old ditch, and then hauling that away and bringing in cart loads of bricks and sand for the mistries (brick layers) to build new brick walls to line the new channel. There are 3 driveways, including ours with newly laid marble slabs that have to be transversed (not a word apparently but it's what I mean~!). Two have been torn out - that is hammered into small pieces by two men with 20 pound sledge hammers. Ours is not yet done - can't imagine what the landlord will say when their brand new, costly driveway ramp is destroyed... But this is what the laborer's children did the afternoon that it rained on the driveway ...
The children are here every day - some days sleeping on the driveway, some days playing in the sand piles - they are pictured above. One of the women workers stops and breast feeds the baby. Two boys on their way home from school wanted their pictures taken too so here they are for all the world to see.

Delhi via Istanbul Again

Back in Delhi after 7 weeks. We stopped in Istanbul for 24 hours because the flight from Chicago was 11 hours plus. The Holiday Inn near the airport was quite luxurious - surprisingly and very Turkish not surprisingly. We went to the Museum of Modern Art which we had tried very hard to find at the beginning of May but couldn't find. It is set across the Golden Horn from Sultanamehet right on the bank of the Sea of Marmara. It is only 5 years old but has a big collection breath take-ingly displayed. It reminded us of the Tate Modern and the new modern addition to the Art Institute in Chicago. Definitely a world class museum. The spires of minarets all over the modern city are reminders to remember God and to remember to pray every time they are glimpsed. We flew on June 24 arriving in Delhi at 4 AM on June 25. It was horrifingly hot but the monsoon more or less began this Tuesday. Temperatures went down from 115 to 100. At least bearable.

Roof Top Terrace at Neeti Bagh

The roof top at Neeti Bagh starring Jack and Arun:

Traffic and Things In Delhi

Just an update on the "No Honking Campaign" in Delhi. Here are two photos I took this weekend. More and more signs are showing up all over Delhi. These two are in Hindi, which most of you know I can't read very well, but the one says (I think) "Horn Nahi Bajao" - someone correct me if I'm wrong! The campaign is having little effect - the chorus I hear outside on the road right now, on Sunday morning, is really hectic.



There is a "no honking" campaign underway in New Delhi. Jack and I agree that it is impossible to teach 20 million drivers to completely change their way of behaving on the road. Honking gets other vehicles to get out of the way, keeps them from backing into you, tells pedestrians that you're coming through whether they are there or not, makes vehicles change lanes etc. As we have always heard you need 3 things to drive in India, good brakes, good horn, and good luck.
The sign on the traffic light (an innovation in and of itself) says "Honking is a Traffic Violation ... STOP IT. Obey Taffic Laws , avoid embarrassment and heavy penalty." The lovely irony in the shot I got as we went around that corner is that it is also a violation to smoke in public so Mr. Citizen standing under the light is also bucking for a ticket. The sign was only there for about a week ... not a trace of it at the light this morning.
Here is another sign to contemplate ..
There are a series of these signs in English all over town. My guess is that less than 50% of all drivers can read English so that is also something to contemplate. The other "no honking" signs that are entertaining - "if you believe in peace ... do not honk." Reports of some excellent bumper stickers too. I am going to be looking for them and hopefully will add some photos to this blog.
Happy trails.

The Dogs At Neeti Bagh

We have 3 dogs at Neeti Bagh - Lady, Lucy and Lucky. They live on the street outside our house and are always there to greet us when we leave. They are the most affectionate dogs we've ever known. We noticed them all when we first arrived, sleeping under the parked cars around the neighborhood. We bought some dog biscuits thinking that they'd like them - they do sort of but really just take them from us to be polite.
Lady is the white one and does not like the biscuits but craves affection - she will let you rub her neck as long as you care to do it. It appears that Lady is the mother of the other two. Lucky is the brown one with white paws and a white blaze. He is rambunctious and very jealous - if we pet either of the other ones he growls and shoves our hand away and insists that he gets the attention. Lucy is very shy but dances with her paws in the air when she sees us coming -even when the Innova pulls up she knows I'm in the car and prances around with her front paws up. She will eat a dog biscuit but only because it appears to make me happy. She basically just wants to be petted. She spends most of the day curled up beside the tree right at the front of our drive way. The owner of the little shop by the gate seems to feed them every day - with day old milk and cold chappatis.
There are many dogs in the Neeti Bagh neighborhood - many pedigreed ones. The students reported a glossy poster being circulated this week with a glamor shot of a pug that has been lost. Several of the outside dogs began sporting fancy winter coats once it got cold in Novemeber. This shot is taken right at the top of the street where my office is in Nizamuddin East. This man has set up a duchan (small shop) selling candy and tobacco. His dog is always there with him in her handsome red winter coat.

The Delhi Metro

Update on the Metro - things are progressing really rapidly on all the sites that we see regularly. We read this week that the section that crosses the Jumuna over to Noida will open in the next few days. There is one section of the Ring Road that I cross everyday. It is a place where there is an underpass and an overpass and there is one pillar for the Metro constructed on the north side of the whole over-underpass junction. I said to Jack as we drove through on the underpass , "I wonder how they are going to manage to get the tracks across this section?" My answer came the next day in an artists rendering in the newspaper - it is going to be a very high-tech suspension bridge. What do you think of that?



My obsession with the Delhi Metro construction has to be memorialized so here is a blog on the topic. The map is what will be in place by October of 2010. It is going to make getting around Delhi an entirely new experience. And having the construction completed will make driving around Delhi better as well. Here is a picture I took last week on my drive home . The construction has moved very quickly on the route that I travel to and from the IES Center. I took a video as well. It will give you glimpses of the construction, traffic and sounds on my morning trip.

The Palace at Pataudi

Short report on a luxury evening and night spent at the Neemrana Hotel, the Palace at Pataudi. We had a 3-day weekend with Republic Day being on January 26 so we went for Saturday night to Pataudi. It's 60 km. south of Delhi - through Gurgoan so we took the opportunity to stop and see one of the famous malls in Gurgoan. Had lunch at the Food Court - Subway sandwiches. I had the chicken tikka with mint chutney and Jack had the chicken and lamb club. The little guy from the Chinese dim sum stall brought us samples hoping we would order but we were just grateful for the marketing strategy. Mango ice cream from Baskin Robbins was desert.
Then on the country estate of the Begum of Pataudi - built in the 1930's it is not huge but certainly grand. Our room, on the second floor, was enormous with 5 doors - one leading to a private balcony which was also where the bathroom was located. The bathroom was also enormous - had a huge domed ceiling, green marble floors, and very bad lighting. The 4 upstairs rooms (only about 16 rooms in the whole place) opened onto another porch (picture above). One door led to the porch in the front of the Palace where breakfast was served.
There was a huge grove of baers (little fruit that are very sweet/tart and a favorite from my childhood) that was being guarded by a yelling guard who has there to scare off the peacocks - there were at least 2 pairs wandering the grounds. There were two very fancy camels also available for riding - Jack and I have ridden enough camels in our lives but they were very picturesque. We wandered through the huge rose garden - counted about 400 plants. The food was delicious and with so few rooms there were only a few guests making it a most pleasant stay. Highly recommended as a get-away. We will certainly return.