The Delhi grind

I head to Tamil Nadu tomorrow with Katie and the girls for 8 days, with Steve likely joining us for the last 3.  We may shoot down to Kerala from Tamil Nadu and do a week there, but that is yet to be determined.  It will be a lovely break from the hustle and bustle of the city life. I am sure I will have a lot to blog about upon our return. 

In the meantime, Delhi life is, well, Delhi life.  The temperatures have dropped to bearable, but it's still hot, hot, hot.  Sun shines daily, aside from three days of downpours, which ruined many roads, and flooded some neighborhoods entirely.  Needless to say, the drought is over, and our seasonal rainfall expected was reached.  However, the flooding wreaked havoc on the whole city and I found myself stranded in Gurgaon.  If anyone has read The White Tiger (which I highly recommend), the picture in your mind of Gurgaon is likely not so flattering.  A concrete jungle, really, underwater.  Apparently the flooding affected US companies across the board, as I received an email from Sara regarding delays on Ernst and Young projects due to the Delhi/Gurgaon rain. Imagine a New England snowstorm, or better yet, a freak snowstorm in the South where they have no plows or means to deal with the snow, and so their whole world shuts down temporarily. It was quite something!

Last week, I went to a dinner party at a family's home in Gurgaon.  The hostess is from Kerala, and she made the most delicious Keralan food.  It was heavenly...rice with cashews and coconut milk, a chicken curry, veg curry, spiced mutton (lamb) and more. It was so delish!! I love the South Indian food, light and full of coconut and mostly rice based.  Katie and I have taken to the local Bhavans, government approved, or run (I'm not really sure) roadside eateries. So we've had street food, officially. And we're alive!! The Bhavans are frequented mainly by locals, and feature typical cuisines from around India. The one we went to most recently was South Indian, but I can't recall the specific area.  I have fallen in love with Masala Dosa, a rice and lentil pancake (crepe-like) spiced with masala and wrapped around a potato mixture.  And I love, love, love idlis, which small, round, steamed rice and lentil bread. The taste is reminscent of the Ethiopian teff flour bread, except they are not flat and thin. They are generally dipped in sambar, a spicy vegetable soup or in coconut chutney, both delicious. I also spread jam on them for breakfast, or dip them in a mixture of yogurt and coconut milk.  They are excellent, and easy to make using a mix and an idli steamer! If you get a chance to try South Indian food, do it.  The most common Indian cuisine in the States is North Indian, heavy on the dairy and flour, and they use the Tandoori oven to make things like naan or yummy chicken.

There are a couple of big holidays coming up soon.  Dussehra is at the end of the month, and is a celebration of good conquering evil, based around the Ramayana.  Google if you are interested. Sophie was in the Ramayana play at school, a very interesting to-do.  The kids were on stage for a little while, while an adult narrated the story, and then the audience shifted to a pyrotechnics display in the sandbox (did I mention that Sophie is in preschool...) where three large figures, the three bad guys from the story, were burned.  There are performances like this all over the city around this time.  Maybe I'll catch a more professional version at some point.
Devali or Dewali is the next big holiday (late October) and it is the Hindu equivalent to Christmas.  Apparently there are fireworks EVERYWHERE (I have been warned to stay inside, crouched low to the ground), and a lot of gambling.  And people buy new stuff, much like our Christmas, except they go big - new cars, appliances, furniture, homes. Okay, maybe that is like Christmas for some people in the states.  And of course there are sweets.  Indians love their sweets.  And they really mean sweet.  Too sweet for me, most of the time. 

Really exciting news: Julia Roberts is in town to film Eat, Pray, Love!   For those of you who know me well, the book by Elizabeth Gilbert on which this movie is based, is among my favorites.  If I weren't going out of town, I might just have to scope out the scene and find the Ashram in Gurgaon where filming is taking place. 

I think there is more that I intended to report, but I am drawing a blank.  Stay tuned for highlights of the Tamil Nadu trip...

Namaste.