Well after a great week of working - with the NID on Sunday and then traveling to Anandpur Sahib for the work project, and the long, long ride back to Delhi, a Farewell Dinner with the Rotary Club of Delhi -Megapolis the night before, we had a free day - some members went on a tour of Old Delhi, touring the largest Mosque, the Red Fort, the old market and Humayum's Tomb. Five of the team went off to tour The Taj Mahal in Agra. My grandson and I went to visit with the couple who had hosted me when I led the Group Study Exchange Team to India in 2003 - Deepak and Yogesh Sikand. It was wonderful to catch up with them, and we were pleased to meet Yog's 99 year old father, who joined us for tea in the garden. He was pleased to meet John, and said he was looking forward to his 100th!!! Following tea, Yog and Deepak took us to the rear gate of their property and then across the narrow street, to show us the Ugrasen ki Baoli - a step well constructed hundreds of years ago. We had a wonderful visit with them and then Yog drove John and me to Connaught Place, where we enjoyed Maharaja Burgers at McDonald's!!! Then John and I walked back to our hotel. About one hundred yards before we reached the hotel, a jolly looking man stood up from his seat On the sidewalk and spoke to me, calling me by name. His name is Mr. Singh and he owns several Tuk-tuks (the motorized Rickshaws) and some taxi cabs. I remembered him from the past two years, once he spoke, but certainly did not expect him to call me by name.
Later in the afternoon, John (aka J. T.) went with me to have dinner with Sanjiv Saran's daughter, Pallavi Saran Gujral, and her little two year old daughter, Saroya. Pallavi was kind enough to send a car to our hotel to drive us to her home, on the other side of the city. I had a bit of a mission, as well, to find and purchase some specific fabric for my church at home and Pallavi said there was a wonderful place very near her home, called Nehru Place, where there are literally hundreds of shops and stores which just sell fabric!!! Who knew??? We stopped at only one shop and found exactly what I was looking to purchase and we bought 30 meters of it to bring home.
Dinner with Pallavi and Saroya was lots of fun, catching up on past years. After the horrible tsunamis in December 2004, the following year, Pallavi came to the USA, and stayed with us for several weeks that summer, and helped us to raise funds for tsunami relief projects, which we used to pay for fifty of one hundred homes which were built for some of the survivors of the tsunamis south of Chennai, on the east coast. When Pallavi stayed with us at the lake cottage, J.T. was her daily wake-up call, and she enjoyed reminiscing about those times. Saroya enjoyed playing peekaboo and chasing J.T. around the living room. We said goodbye and returned to the hotel. Early to bed for an early departure in the morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment