Day 53 (29 July): Transiting through Dehli again

In the morning, Umung’s mother and I picked up take-away from a very well-known Indian breakfast place. We then drove to her house, which up to this point I had not seen yet, in a small village outside of Dehra Dun surrounded by rice paddies, mango & lychee orchards, a national forest and mountains ranges in view on both sides. After eating breakfast, a tour of the house, and a long conversation over tea about the history of Dehra Dun among other things, we headed to the airport for a mid-day flight back to Dehli. Just as has happened elsewhere in India thus far, it began raining on the way to the airport.

Arriving in Dehli, I checked into a hotel again and this time ventured out to explore Dehli’s Main Bazzar which was near the hotel. I headed back to bed fairly early as I had a 6 am flight to Jaipur the next morning.

Observations:
1) India is becoming more of a tightly knit country or at least people from different regions that have traditionally held on to their own unique cultures have begun embracing other regions cultures as well. One place this is evidenced is in restaurants, since you can now find restaurants that serve North Indian, South Indian, and Begali food all on the same menu. Umung’s mother told me that several years ago you would only find each of these different types of cuisines at separate restaurants. Maybe further integration of cultures will allow the country to integrate better politically at a national level, since they currently have a hard time making national laws, given strong state’s rights in their federalist government.
2) Sikhs. They are integral to the history of Dehra Dun. Despite popular conception that its an old religion, its in fact less than 20 years old and the habit of wearing tubins and having the last name Singh is even newer. Thanks to Sikh migration from Punjab, many people in Dehra Dun speak Punjabi in addition to Hindi.
3) If you start a business, people will come. The airport in Dehra Dun is tiny with only one flight each way, each day, yet for some reason a home near the airport recently was converted into a ‘hotel’ or the owners decided to put up a sign and be open to renting an extra room.
4) Men holding hands. This is common is India, so is rather affectionate looking hugging, but neither is considered ‘gay.’ Women and men hugging or holding hands in public is actually probably more rare than men holding hands with other men.
5) Gypsies. These are actually people whom made a ‘religious’ decision not to hold material possessions and become nomadic in response to a growing merchant class. Their perception in Hungary (where they migrated or so I was told when I was there) was quite different to their perception in India. In India they are considered good, smart people, whereas in Hungary they are looked down on and often suspected of being thieves.
6) Hand out to cross the street. In Dehli, like many other places in India, when people want to cross the street they simply start walking across it putting their palm towards cars. This of course adds to the already incessant honking and doesn’t help them that much, but hurts traffic.
7) Pilgrimages can be very long. Taking a cab in from the Dehli airport, I noticed a number of the Pilgrims I saw in Rishikesh with the Ganges river water jugs, making their way down the road. That means these people have been walking for what is a one hour flight or six hour drive. That’s a long distance and pretty impressive; no wonder many of them look like they are limping.