LEAVING INDIA
Yesterday Meet drove Hasmukh and me in the afternoon to Ahmedabad where in the evening Shilpa joined us and we went out to eat near Hasmukh’s house just down the street from where I stayed with Shilpa’s family at the wedding. We had Punjabi food, which was no more recognizable to me, except for the naan, than Gujarati food.
When going to an ATM I unexpectedly was opposite Dr. Boghani’s Dental Clinic where years ago Susie had a tooth pulled quite efficiently by Dr. Boghani, with the only surprise being the number of people who crowded around the dental chair to watch the operation.
On the morning of the 29th I had my final very Gujarati breakfast of spicy milky tea (chai), a chalky white dough, a fried chili, some chili on fire chutney, some rice cakes to be eaten soaked in a yellow curry and jalebies that are fried circles of dough soaked in a sweet orange syrup. I will compare this in a couple of days to an
American Asheville breakfast.
I took some portraits of Hasmukh and Shilpa, Hasmukh went off to a meeting, Shilpa waited for the vegetable ladies to bring their cart down the street with fresh vegetables for sale. One of the women was even cutting up the string beans for a customer who wouldn’t have time to cut them herself.
Sometime during the day I read an article which stated that 70% of American’s daily food intake is of highly processed foods which can greatly increase the risk of heart problems, dementia and a wide variety of other health threats. It occurred to me on reading the article that I hadn’t had any processed food since the day I came to Sri Lanka, everything had been cooked fresh daily. And it also occurred to me that when asked how I possibly was able to cook for myself, an elderly man living alone, in Swannanoa, that my answer, small portions of delicious frozen meals from Trader Joe, gave me away completely, as I head toward heart disease or dementia or some other awful end with a smug smile on my face.
After lunch Meet needed to drive Hasmukh to an eye appointment I was sent off on my own to board the Shatabdi Express to Mumbai. I recorded the motor rickshaw ride through the swirling traffic, and then when on the train recorded a little of the very comfortable train with wide seats and plenty of leg room for the six hour ride, with a number of stops before the Boreli stop where I took a motor rickshaw ride to the airport.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/0a97r-RYcmd8Gud5j44pGOQ4Q
I had been told on the train to offer 400 rs and to settle for 600. I was told by taxi drivers that whoever said that was nuts (paggel) and that no taxi would take less than 1500. The rickshaw driver who wanted 500 settled for 400 and I discovered that in the crowded traffic a rickshaw was almost as fast and much easier to video from.
The air conditioned train ride was very civilized with each person given a bottle of mineral water, tea time at 4 with tea and cakes and a non veg supper at about 8 p.m..
https://share.icloud.com/photos/065wfhQU5dOHOCsRrs8ZTZWWA
I got to the airport at 11 and checked in (with two checked bags accepted free since they needed the room). If I had checked my second bag in advance it would have cost, I think, $70. Then I waited, seated next to a pleasant Indian couple from Raleigh, where he had taught at Duke, who, I discovered had paid $1400 each for their round trip ticket. (I paid $770 thanks to Going.com).
This day of travel, exhausted before I got on the plane, was the way I said goodbye to India.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 