Old Delhi in three parts – part one, the food…………..

Old Delhi is an fascinating place. A lot of expats are nervous about going there. At first glance, it is crowded and dirty and filled mostly with men. At a second glance, it is simply more crowded and dirtier than I am used to and still filled mostly with men. But, it’s unnecessary to be nervous. You just take the same precautions you would in any crowded area. And be prepared to shake your comfort zone up a bit. However, you will certainly walk away with great stories of interesting people.

Old Delhi is jam packed with not only people but also Indian history and culture. Please feel free to correct anything I get wrong – but from what I understand – it is mostly a Muslim community. Old Delhi was the capital of the Mughals until the end of the Mughal dynasty. It is called Shajahanabad and is home to the Red Fort. Shajahan is the man who had the Taj Mahal built.

We were in Old Delhi during the Muslim holiday called Ramadan. Many times during our visit, there were calls to prayer. Hubby got some of that on video on his phone, but I cannot seem to upload it. I will work on that as it was really amazing. The wailing and peaceful movement to the temple.

Everywhere you go in Delhi, there is food available on the street. Honestly, I have not tried true “street food” but I love the way it looks. Anyone who knows what any of this is, please feel free to tell us!

I believe these are like vermicelli noodles.

These I would definitely eat. They looked so yummy!

This one looks like coconut and all kinds of nuts – what it tastes like, I don’t know.

I was told this is an “acquired” taste.

This one also looked appealing – it was corn on the cob.

I have more pictures that I will share tomorrow. Have a great day/night!

p.u.b.l.i.s.h.e.d…………………

This is a big milestone for me as a writer – not just a blogger pretending to be a writer – but an actual published writer.

Expat Blog selected one of my articles to p.u.b.l.i.s.h.

You can read it here:
http://www.expat-blog.com/en/guide/asia/india/718-sometimes-it-is-just-hard.html

This is a reprint of “where he draws the line” from my own blog. But it was p.u.b.l.i.s.h.e.d. on another site. Yippee for me! I made some revisions before I sent it to them in final form, so you might notice some slight changes – most likely, you won’t notice anything different about it.

Okay, I have now taken off my bragging hat – sorry to bring you into the self-patting-on-the-back excitement.

Lunch with the ladies…..

Here are the pictures from the luncheon the other day. It was great fun to be able to entertain new friends and introduce my favorite people in Delhi to one another. There were a couple ladies who snuck out of the room before I could get their picture – but I will get them next time.

I was right – I served enough wine that no one cared noticed that the table was crooked.

In this picture, you can see the fun bracelets and wooden dice boxes – those were the party favors.

As you can see, I used my grandmother’s very best china plastic plates. Unfortunately, I did not bring a lot of my entertaining things from the U.S. But, if you plan to move here – especially if you have young children – plastic plates are a great idea. Marble floors plus grandma’s very best china could very well equal broken china.

How to succeed in life without really trying……..

I am finally understanding how things work here – well at least a little bit – I still have a ton of questions – but luckily I am not afraid to embarrass myself in the name of learning.

Case in point…

Yesterday I hosted a luncheon. It was a lot of fun and I have pictures so watch for that. But first things first. In order to get ready for it, I had the people who work for us come early. They worked their butts off and made everything wonderful. As you might of read, we had tables delivered so everyone could have a place to sit. The guys who delivered the tables made a mess of the driveway.

Yes, that would be the driveway my guests had to walk down to get to my front door. So it needed to be swept. Sooner than later.

Here is what I learned yesterday. There are very clear delineations as to what exactly everyone will and will not do. Kahn, our driver, drives and keeps the car clean. Laxmi, our cook, cooks and keeps the kitchen clean. Ravi, our house cleaner, cleans and keeps our house clean. The guards, well, apparently they will only guard. And the tent wallas will deliver tables and set them up, but they do not clean up any mess they make.

It really is simple. Kindergartner-level stuff, really.

Well, unless you add an ex-pat to the mix, who doesn’t understand “the way things work” and frankly doesn’t really care. Somewhere along the line I missed the memo.

Kahn, Laxmi, and Ravi have spoiled me. They work together very well as a team. Ravi has made sauce (I want him to learn to cook so his next job will be better) and even Kahn was in the kitchen yesterday cutting up vegetables. Maybe it’s not normal in India – hopefully it is more normal than I have been led to believe – I very much like that it is normal in my house. I like that they like working together and don’t hesitate to pitch in whenever needed.

Ravi was really busy and time was winding down for guests to arrive. I noticed he had not had a chance to sweep yet. So, I asked Laxmi to ask the guard to sweep the driveway. Kahn was by the gate so he could watch the gate for the 3 and a half minutes it would take him.

Did you feel that pull and jerk? Yes, that was the world – it stopped spinning for a minute – I messed with the alignment of the universe. I hope you didn’t spill your coffee – or worse – your wine. Even if it’s Gallo, there’s no need for spillage.

Laxmi tells me that he won’t do it. It is not his job.

Okay a few things…

My American friends are thinking – why didn’t you just do it yourself? The answer to that is – it is well over 100 degrees here and humid as hell and I had already showered. And there are some advantages to living here – I have people – they can do it. Two months ago, I would have agreed with you. Today, I am finally accepting that I can let them do the stuff I don’t like to do and not feel guilty about it.

The guard is not overtaxed with his workload. It’s a long day and a very boring job. He has to open a gate every now and then. From that he has perfected the arm movement he needs to know to sweep. Just longer strokes. Just closer to the ground.

Our driveway is not long. It would have taken him just a couple minutes.

I did not know this was a faux pas.

When Kahn heard the guard said no, Kahn took the broom and swept the driveway. I do know that drivers outrank guards here. How do I know that? Because whenever Kahn is outside with the guard, Kahn gets to sit in the guard booth with the fan and cooler of ice cold water.

As a result, Kahn, Laxmi, and Ravi got a bonus for the outstanding/hard work they did yesterday.

The guard lost his job.

out to lunch…………

Today I am hosting a very casual luncheon. So I am just a wee bit busy. I’ll catch you up on how it goes very soon. But I’ll give you a snipet of how it has begun….

We have 6 chairs around our table. I invited more than 6 people. hmmmmmmmm. No biggie, right? Right. So I rented tables. 3 of them. And several chairs.

The tables were delivered at 11p – yes, at night. No, I am not kidding. 4 men came to setup 3 tables and it took an hour to set them up. Nope, not kidding.

As is typical with any kind of rented table, they looked terrible as a bare table. So we requested table cloths. The first suggestion made by the rental company was white table cloths with red satin bows. Yea. Not so much. We decided to just go with just the white table cloths.

The two round tables have white striped satin cloths on them. I am not a huge fan of satin – but it looks better than the bare table. The rectangular table has a solid white fabric cloth draped around the sides and – wait for it – a piece of cream colored paper (think butcher paper) on the top. Again, not kidding.

They also draped the chairs with white satin covers. It looked like cotton candy exploded on the tables and chairs. So, I am dumbing it way down and using my own table covers – call them table covers because they are actually bed covers, but they look way better – I’ll take pictures so you can see – I also took the covers off the chairs – they are red and black. Expect the unexpected.

Just as the tent wallas (that’s what they are called) were getting ready to leave, I realized that the rectangular table is completely slanted at one corner. I sat in a chair to look at it from another angle and realized the chair was also completely crooked.

Have no fear, I am a creative hostess – I am serving wine before lunch and a lot of it. By the time my guests sit down, they will think something is wrong with them – not the table/chair.

I did have a fun idea – I am using bracelets from an Indian market as napkin holders and the guests will all get to take theirs home as a party favor. I’ll let you know how it all goes.

He’s on the payroll………

I never imagined I would have a staff for my blog, but number one hubby signed himself up as a field reporter. Here are two pictures he took for me of the aftermath of the massive rain we experienced the other day….

The most amazing thing to me was that most people just kept right on riding their bikes and their scooters and pushing their carts and driving. They seemed completely unfazed by the buckets and buckets of water that fell from the sky.

Rain Angels……………

It’s monsoon season in Delhi. I have not had my camera with me the few times that it has been an absolute down pour and I do promise to try to do better with that. The rain here can be unbelievable. It is beautiful and can be deadly.

But it did rain at our house the other day and I actually had my camera ready. I thought I would share with you why we are enjoying having outside space now.

Rain angels? Okay – not quite as pretty as snow angels – but at least as fun and much warmer.

Who needs a fancy slip and slide when you have a slate patio and rain?

And this is what they think of me taking their picture. And, yes, I am standing inside – where it’s dry!

a little help please………

I was shopping in Spencers yesterday. (For those of you not familiar with Spencers, it is an actual store – not a market – it’s similar enough to Target in the U.S.) I went to the wine section and asked about some wines.

I am not a red wine drinker, so I simply looked for the American brand. Cheating, sure. Easier, absolutely. I found Gallo. (For those of you not familiar with Gallo wine, it’s kind of the bottom of the barrel of wines – it’s similar enough to mud – yummy mud, but mud nonetheless.) Gallo is very inexpensive in the U.S. This bottle would probably be about $4 in the States. When the guy told me it was 1400 rupees, I almost fell over. Yes, you did the math right, that is about $28. Not happening. I’ll stomp my own grapes before I will pay that much for Gallo wine.

No thanks, I’ll find something else. I did and it was 1/2 the price and a (much) better wine.

I asked for some other wines too. So I ended up with about 15 bottles of wine. No – I am not a whino – but going to Spencers in pretty much an all-day affair – so I stock up.

The wine guy sends me over to the main cash registers so that I can purchase everything at one time. Excellent.

Walking out to the car, I realize that there two bottles of wine for 2700 rupees on my receipt. Yes, this is for 2 bottles of Gallo wine. Yes, that is about $54. Again, not happening.

Luckily I realized this before we left Spencers. I went back in and – very long story, short -  I was finally able to get my money back. After explaining what happened, I was told that all sales are final. Okay. That doesn’t work so great for me because I said no to this wine. It was a mistake, an honest mistake – but it was not my mistake. The wine guy loaded it up in my basket with the other wines after I said I did not want it. Finally, they (very reluctantly) agreed.

So, I am left wondering – if you are at a market where there are no cash registers and often no receipts, what do you do if you want to return/exchange something? Oh yea, and if you have a recommendation for a sweet, white Indian wine, I’ll take that too.

If you give a mom an ipod…………….

There is a book called “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.” It is about a mouse that gets very distracted along its way during the day. That is the story of my life. I. get. very. distracted. In fact, there is another book called “If You Give a Pancake.” I think we will all agree at the end of this post that this title more aptly applies.

Walk with me……..

I have been getting a few emails about the tone of my blog lately. Nothing bad or negative. Just some people are concerned. I guess I have been a little heavier in my writing lately. So I vowed this week to return to my smartarse ways.

One of the things I wanted to write about was my response to the new “no junk food” policy at the school. The policy in which you cannot buy potato chips but you can buy cookies and brownies with icing. Yes, I have a lot to say about that. Surprised? I still plan to write that because I am v.e.r.y. interested to see what you all have to say about it. But now I am distracted – see how this works?

I was distracted because before I started writing that post, I was looking through a few pictures to send some emails and I got a glimpse of a picture of me from the back. Yikes. Not what I have allowed myself to imagine pretend at all. This is what we call an exercise fail. and a reality fail. At least I can still multi-task.

So, I grab my ipod and decide to recommit myself to exercising a couple of times a week. Starting now. Right now. I am also revisiting my stance on potato chips. Yeah, not really – but I might have to walk more to start competing in triathalons. Off I go.

Well, it seems I have let the battery in my ipod run out. Yes, I was very committed to the exercising thing. Can you tell? Ipod fail.

No problemo – I grab my son’s ipod that is completely charged and I head out to walk.

As I am walking, I realize I don’t recognize many any of the songs. Coolnees fail.

Okay, I did recognize one. “SOS” by the Jonas Brothers. There is absolutely no need for you to point out to me that this song is like sooo last year – or quite possibly the year before. I know. Coolness fail. I get it. And it was not exactly inspiring – it is a love song – but I am no longer professing my love to Rick Springfield, so these songs dripping with Kool-aid and chanting “I will love you forever – or at least until tomorrow” stopped making me smile right after I gave away my favorite purple socks that were just like Donny Osmond’s.

I did decide, however, that I might as well listen to some of the songs on his ipod. Holy bad words batman. I had no idea that some of the songs on his ipod were so “advanced”. Parenting Fail.

Then I get to his favorite song. Another song I recognize. Maybe I am not as uncool as I once thought. Alas, I had no idea that his favorite song of a.l.l. t.i.m.e. has the eff word and the sh word bleeped out. And a couple others that are not. Yea, big fat parenting fail.

Well, at least I accomplished something. I walked.

Now for breakfast. Did I tell you that I found all the ingredients I need in India to make to teach Laxmi how to make a 7-layer mexican dip? Guess what is in my fridge? I cannot imagine why I also remain a lose weight fail.

Here is hoping your day includes something really yummy to eat and a half an hour to walk it off. And if you see a pig with a pancake, please tell him I want my ipod back.

Gifts…………

I was reminded recently that we all have many gifts to share. All of us. Even something we might think is absolutely worthless could hold great value to another person. You might be missing a sock and now find it a useless “pair”, but there is a person who only has one leg and would find it to be the perfect gift.

The footprints you leave behind will influence others. There is no person who at some time, somewhere, somehow, does not lead another. Anonymous