Well this is awkward... I'm blogging. Weh-hellllcome to my blog. I shall call it, 'Keep Calm and Carry-on."
So I guess it's been a tiring six years since college because I managed to sleep throughout the entire 10-hour flight to Moscow and then again for the entire 6-hour flight to Delhi. Picture above taken during my 4 waking hours in the Moscow airport. And then I slept a full night's sleep only 3 hours after landing. But yea, feelin good! I still cannot believe I am in India and that this is happening. Is this happening? This is happening.
So with that, good evening from Gurgaon, a 'suburb' of Delhi. Ranjitha, my friend from co:, connected me with her in-laws in Gurgaon and they have taken me in as their guest for the next few days. (Hi Ranjitha!!! Your mother-in-law is amazing.)
It has been a great day. Vallika, Ranjitha's mother-in-law, took me into Delhi to a handicrafts emporium. (She obviously got the hint that I love a good market). In the auto rickshaw on the way to the train station we passed cows and pigs roaming free on the street. People wheeling carts stacked high with vegetables and other goods. When we saw a car with a Purdue University sticker on the rear window, I was like, say whaaat!? And Vallika said, "a lot of us send our kids to school in the US. We'll starve, but we'll do anything for a good education."
The handicrafts emporium was filled with handmade everything: furniture, clothing, boxes and housewares of all kinds, jewelry, incense, toys. Each and every item had a description of the materials from which it was made and the city it was made in. (Chanel Shapiro you would have loved this market). I didn't buy anything because here's the thing: I have about negative ten square inches of free real estate in my backpack and whatever I buy I'll need to carry with me. So the decision-making process for buying stuff will henceforth go like this:
1. Do I love this thing?
2. Does this thing love me back?
3. Will this thing fit in my backpack?
4. Does this thing deserve to fit in my backpack as much as or more than all of the other things I will accumulate that will also need to fit in my backpack?
I did strongly consider buying a beautiful handmade hair clip to hold up my hair in the 105-degree weather. (Mom you would have loved this clip. Gold, handmade, very sparkly.)
Then witnessed a bit of the Indian monsoon season. Downpour. Relentless.
We just got back from Delhi and Vallika is making chai tea for us. I'm chillin and reading in this spot, which is seriously the best spot ever (Ranjitha and Sid tell me you love this spot):
Love sitting here, Indian style (literally?), close to the ground. So relaxing. And the print on the cushion cover makes me happy.