Punjab

After a brief stay in the capital city of Delhi, and the inevitable overwhelming feelings that accompany the first introduction to India's megaopolis capital, I am now in the Punjab. This is the chapotti basket (bread basket) of the country, fields of wheat (often harvested by hand) dominate the views from the trains and buses in stark contrast with the semi-arid wastelands of the Rajastani deserts. The people here wear a different type of turban than the brightly neoned colored, haphazardly wrapped, bulbous headdresses of Rajasatn, preferring more subdued hues and tightly wound orderly looking wraps. My goal was to visit some of my friends (from the India/Pakistan teacher program I ran in the summer of 2007 at UCLA) in this region, and despite not having a mobile phone (which people still find very hard to believe here) I was able to meet up with two of them. It was very fun staying with families, interacting with children and grandparents and great-grandparents, and spending time with their ordinary weekend activities. This involved eating plenty of Punjabi specialty dishes; each family wanted to fatten me up before my wife arrives later this week (although this did end my over 40 days of vegetarianism in the country, as the Punjabis enjoy eating meat dishes). During the summer heat siestas (mid-day naps) are common on the weekends after a big lunch, luckily my summers in Spain have trained me well for this. Usually people go out in the evening when the temperatures cool off. Activities include strolling by the lake, riding the escalators at the mall (people just enjoy the air conditioning rather than actual shopping, except for the all chicken McDonald's and KFC, which were doing brisk business), weddings (now is the season, and wedding tents and parties can be seen throughout the cities, at times causing big traffic jams), watching cricket on satellite TV (unfortunately for security reasons the Indians have to play their season in South Africa), visiting local temples (we toured the holy stockyard and feed balls of gooey animal feed to the cows in order to redeem the sins accumulated in past lives), and even a trip to the Indian version of Chucky Cheese, were the kids enjoyed trying to win as many tickets as possible with various carnival style games. It was great to be with friends and see how ordinary families enjoy life activities not so differnt from my experiences with my own family.