Shani went to a fashion school in Gujarat and became a fashion designer. All I knew was that he has his workshop in New Delhi and has received some awards for designing. I was looking forward to seeing all that when we got to New Delhi.
Shani's brother, Mehul, and his family were visiting from Chicago. I hadn't seen him for about 12 years. He's the father of 2 lovely kids, Shiv & Reva. I'd never seen them before. Shani's parents live with him, and I was looking forward to seeing them as well. Needless to say, I was excited about catching up with everyone.
Our train from Jaipur was suppose to arrive in New Delhi at 10pm, but it was delayed by 5 hours. We reached Delhi at 3am. Still Shani came to pick us up at the train station. It was good to see him after a few years. We were suppose to stay at Shani's apartment. He told us that there were already about 15 people there because of Mehul's family and some relatives. We would have to crash at his friend's place.
Now from the western standards, you don't go to a stranger's house in the middle of the night and stay with them. I felt a little uncomfortable about it when we got there. Shani introduced us to his friends, Gautam who was in his underwear when he opened the door. Considering this was India, it was very shocking that he didn’t bother putting his pants on even when we were sitting there and hanging out. We hung out 'til 5am and then went to bed. Shani went back to his place.
In the morning, it was awkward because we hadn't met Gautam's wife, Smita. Anyhow, we introduced ourselves and then had breakfast with them. Shani came to pick us up around noon and we went to his place. I told Shani how awkward I felt staying at Gautam's place because we had never met them before. We decided to stay at Shani's even if we had to sleep in the restroom. Luckily, we got the storage room :)
Prior to arriving in New Delhi, Shani had asked me what places we've been in India. I told him that because of my parents, we've mostly seen temples. He laughed and said, "Are you here on a pilgrimage?" The man had a good point; we had seen more temples than places in India.
Ironically, the first place he took us to was a temple, the Akshardham temple in New Delhi. This temple holds the Guiness Book of World Record for the fastest completion of a modern temple for its size, 5 years. We spent the entire day at the temple because it was massive. It certainly was very beautiful in its style and architecture. We stayed for the evening sound & light water fountain show. It was definitely entertaining. The best musical fountain show I’ve ever seen!
It also happened that it was new year’s eve 2009. Everyone was exhausted from being at the temple all day long and it didn’t feel like New Year’s Eve at all. We went to TLR (The Living Room), café & kitchen, which Gautam had started recently. We had no idea how expensive it was go get in and to my surprise it was comparable to New York price. It was about $50/person to get in with all the booze covered in the entry price. Mehul had a very good point when he said, even in the States he’s never gone to a place for New Year’s that had costed him $100 with his wife. Needless to say this was India. Shani had already made plans to go there and was intent on bringing us there. We got to TLR about 10 minutes before midnight. Neither one of us paid for the entrance because of Shani. We didn’t drink alcohol or eat the food there considering we had dinner right before getting there. It was nice spending the New Year’s Eve with Shani and part of his family. It was also Gin’s first New Year’s Eve in India. As Sarah McDonald mentions in The Holy Cow, that Indians can’t handle their alcohol, there were several people at TLR that were puking in the corner, some people drunk and passed out. It was not a scene we wanted to be around for too long. We called it a night soon after they closed around 1am.
In the New Year, we took the kids to the railway museum. They had a lot of fun and truthfully the adults had a good time as well. The following day Mehul and his family were heading back for the States. All of us hungout until they left. Unfortunately, Shani’s mom also had some family matters to take care of and left for Mumbai. So now the entire apartment went from being completely full, to being almost empty.
We were spending a lot of time playing Nintendo Wii which reminded me of Greenfield. I remember last year when, James & Michael got a new Wii, we spent the entire Christmas and New Year’s playing Wii. It was a lot of fun.
Finally we had an opportunity to visit Shani’s workshop/office in Hauz Khas Village. It was a nice workshop and we got an opportunity to see some of his employees in action. Since Shani was so busy at work and we barely spent any time with him alone, we decided to “kidnap” him. We wanted to go to Agra which Shani vetoed because he’d been there a lot of times. Instead, we decided to go to Amritsar for the golden temple. Again, a place very famous in India and a must do on the tourist track. We were looking forward to spending time with Shani and seeing the spectacular golden temple.
A 3 day plan to stay in New Delhi had already turned into a week. We hadn’t seen anything major in New Delhi yet and we felt obligated to go and explore a couple of things before we left for Amritsar. Gin & I decided to check out the Red Fort before we left for Amritsar. After seeing the Red Fort, we both decided we could’ve skipped it especially after seeing the spectacular palaces & forts in Rajasthan.
The night before Shani’s dad had taken us to see Qutb Minar (one of the best examples of architecture in India and definitely a must see). Gin & I both felt we needed more time at Qutb Minar and decided to go back after the Amritsar trip.
We were very happy with the decision we had made about spending the extra days in New Delhi. From our experience so far, the most memorable and fun times we’ve had were with friends and family along the way. Spending those extra days in New Delhi was well worth it.
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