Agra, Dheli and Weddings, Oh My

We step off the sleeper train at 7am exhausted, sticky and dirty. Tulsi feels sick. Our mission in Agra is to see the Taj Mahal but first all we want is to clean up. We ask the rickshaw driver to take us to a 5 star restaurant where we figure we can use the restrooms to change and freshen up. He tells us frankly such a restaurant is not in our budget. So I hop out at various mediocre spots to fain enough interest in breakfast to check if the bathrooms are up to Tulsi's cleanliness standards (which are higher than mine ).

We find a place with a relatively clean western toilet, cushy booth seats, and no other customers. Tulsi sleeps until her lemon ginger tea and my parathas come and then again afterward. I eventually nod off over my Hindi book. The proprietor doesn't seem fazed that we have spent only 300 rupees and 3 hours in his restaurant and gives us advice on how to get to Dheli that evening.

Around 11am we make it to the Taj Mahal where there are thousand of tourists snapping photos and wander through the surreally symmetric complex. The marble is inlaid with semiprecious stones from all over the world and the tricks in the architecture make the building both more impressive and durable.

We take the bus from Agra to Dheli, its driver honking shrilly like the horn rather than the engine is propelling us past rice patties, women carrying firewood in fabric bundles, stacks of cow patties stored for construction, a farmer on an elephant, families making bricks, and small crossroad towns that line the road with food shops, chai stands, tables of produce, and rickshaws.

Arriving in Dheli, we shower and meet with friends of Tulsi's from her study abroad stint here. The city is sprawling with wide, busy streets and a lot of green. The next day we go to a famous market and meet more friends for lunch in P.C., a huge complex of shops built by the British.

We venture into an old, mainly Muslim area of the city to visit the orphanage where Tulsi used to volunteer. The neighborhood looks much more like the rest of the country than most its metropolitan capital, we pass a wholesale market where things are being carted away by cow and camel. The staff at the children's shelter is happy to update us that nearly all the kids who Tulsi had taught were now reunited with their parents. (Many run away or are lost in the metro or at the train station and, having no way to contact their village or relatives, end up at such drop-in centers indefinitely).

The mood is a bit somber until leaving the metro we find a group of young people stopped at the bottom of an escalator, fascinated but scared to test these moving stairs. Each of us grab one by the hand and steady them through their first ride, everyone laughing triumphantly at the top.

On the upscale express train back to Ahmadabad we feel pampered by the cleanliness and meals provided. Further pampering follows as we prepare for the next week full of weddings with eyebrow threading and facials.

To warm up we hit two receptions of Tulsi's father's business partner's sons. These are formal affairs with lots of catered food on grassy party plots. 500-1000 people eat off plastic plates and line up to take pictures with the bride and groom. We'll be part of the whole week long string of events for 4 childhood friends and 1 neighbor. We dance with one family, rise early the next day to accompany another bride to the beginning of her 5 hour day at the salon , return to the first girl's house for a mandy function where henna is painted on our hands, then go back to the in-laws of the second's. In all of this there is eating, lots of it. The next week will continue this way until we go to Mumbai.