More about the photos

As I was finishing my packing for my trip at home in San Francisco, I found out that Naren-tauji, an uncle who lives in Jaipur, has been gathering Shankar-Bhatnagar family info together on a website. I’m still learning about it myself -- and what a boon it is for this trip! -- but Bua and Vinita-didi hadn’t yet seen it, so we spent a bit of time yesterday showing it to them here in Chandigarh.

On the home page of the site, the photo of the couple together (the mustachioed gentleman with the cap and his wife) -- those are Vivek’s paternal grandparents. If you’ve met Pops or any of his brothers, you’ll instantly recognize the family resemblance to their father. (I have a photo of several of the brothers lined up together last year, and the likeness is stunning.)

Pops' parents -- though I swear, that could be Pops himself.

If you scroll down to the last group photo on the page, you can see that the resemblance carries on: Vinita-didi, sitting on Bua’s lap, fits right in. (And that’s Pops as a boy, standing, to the right of Vinita-didi.)

A family photo from 1951, at Sukh Bihar.

Finally, if you keep poking around the site, you’ll end up finding this photo of Sukh Bihar, the Shankar-Bhatnagar homestead in Kanpur (in the state of Uttar Pradesh, southwest of Delhi). 

Sukh Bihar, the Shankar-Bhatnagar family home in Kanpur. That's Bua and a tenant of the complex on the lawn.

“I’m standing there!” Bua said as we opened the photo.

Much of the family spent time at this home -- including Vivek and devarji when they were little kids. It had three sets of “houses,” for lack of a better word: two to the left of the driveway, and one to the right, behind the yard where Bua is in fact standing. Vivek tells great stories about sleeping outside on cots in a courtyard there, under the stars, when it was too hot to sleep inside. I’ve always been keen to see the place, although most of the buildings were torn down after the complex was sold about a decade ago.

Perhaps that’s a journey for my next trip.

Just a normal day

While it might seem a little silly in some ways, I suppose, one of the things I really wanted to get on this trip was a sense of real life in India. That is, of course, real life for a typical, middle-class family -- specifically, my husband’s family. What’s it really like to go through the daily acts of simply living here? What does it feel like to be here, to have this as your anchor point to the rest of the world? What does one think about throughout the day? (Big questions, I know.)

I’ve been here on five trips previously, of course, so I’m no stranger to Indian life. But as a first-time visitor, a co-worker on assignment or a wedding attendee (at my own or someone else’s ceremony), it’s impossible to see what a normal, run-of-the-mill day might look like in a normal, run-of-the-mill week.

I’m happy to report that, in my eight days thus far, I am getting a sense of what a normal day at home looks like, at least -- and so while it might bore the Shankar-Bhatnagars, Mathurs and Indian friends following this blog, I shall now report back to you what I’ve learned. In a nutshell, it centers on food -- but perhaps that’s just my skewed view. It also centers on mornings, which, perhaps owing to the high temps of the afternoons, seems to be when most of the work gets done.

Mornings, as I got the sense a few years ago in Bombay, are quiet. It seems from outside that few people are stirring to enjoy this time, as office workers don’t start heading out until 9 a.m. From inside houses, however, I can tell you that preparations for the day are well under way. From 7 a.m. or earlier, chai is boiling, ingredients are being assembled for meals, papers are being read.

Around 8:30 a.m. today in Chandigarh, I stepped out onto the balcony for some fresh morning air. The park across the street was uncharacteristically empty, as the kids, I presume, were all at school. (It’s nearly 4:30 p.m. as I write this, and the park, including its slides and swings, is now teeming with kids.) The traffic on the main road behind the house was calm, such that, aside from the trains just beyond the road, the world was quiet and calm.

Of most interest to me, in this unusual calm, were the street vendors pedaling by on their bikes and bike carts. Vivek has always said that you can get anything delivered in India -- but here in Chandigarh, I’m able to really see it. Veggie wallahs bike by with carts full of turnips, cabbage and those delicious red carrots I’ve only seen in India. Men with burlap sacks tied to their bikes yell out for the “Paper!” they’d like to recycle. Saree- and scarf-sellers even come by -- and last evening, we saw a vendor with a cart full of plastics. The stack of his wares must have been four feet high!

But back to the morning. Sometime during or after breakfast, domestic help arrives, in the form of maids and cooks. Deliveries also begin, including milk, freshly-pressed kurtis from the dhobi or tiny puris for panipuri (Vivek -- you should have been here).

After the rush, lunch happens -- sometime after 12, but closer to it Pops is deciding -- and is often followed by a nap. (Pops told me the other day about how his naps became longer and longer as he got older. I’m trying to keep mine to under an hour for fear that I’ll somehow reverse the defeat of my jet lag.) Kids begin to get out of school around this time, and you can see them walking or biking or even scootering home in their uniforms and backpacks.

A nap is followed by tea (I can hear ours for today being made now), and soon after, dinner preparations begin again. Dinner, however, typically isn’t eaten until after 8 p.m., so a few hours of work for another day follow. (In my case, that’s packing for our trip to Dehradun tomorrow.)

Of course, in the midst of this, there aren't any sons or daughters running around in the houses where I'm staying. Ma and Pops are each the youngest of their respective families -- and so as their children have grown up and moved out, so have the children of my in-law aunts and uncles. But I can get a sense, least, of what a day in Vivek's life might have been like. (No doubt he'll tell us in the comments, however, if I've missed anything.)

A drink

I had not expected to drink in Chandigarh, as I know Bua and Vinita-didi typically don't drink. It was also traditionally frowned upon, in less recent times in India, for women to drink -- and especially, I learned today, in the presence of their elders. (As drinking is not the purpose of my trip to India, however, this was of course not an issue of concern for me.)

As a special dispensation, however, drinks were offered tonight -- and Pops and I are being treated to a bit of whiskey, care of the spoils from Ashish-dada's wedding reception. (Thank you, Ashish! When we finally meet I shall return the favor.)

The whiskey hits the spot, versus a cold beer, in this heavenIy cool weather. I thought perhaps we would have our portions after dinner, but Pops disagreed.

"It's seven!" he said. "I am ready." It's happy hour. Here's to health and more gatherings.

Hello from cool, calm Chandigarh

We've arrived safely in Chandigarh, India's first planned city, where the current temperature is a cool, dry 57 degrees Fahrenheit. After Bombay's humid heat, it's an especially lovely climate.

The day has gone swimmingly. Our flight arrived five minutes early, and we were whisked from the airport to Bua and Vinita-didi's house. Here, we sat down right away in their gorgeous, bright sun room for tea.

Vinita-didi pours tea, with sweet and savory biscuits in the background.

We spent a few hours talking and looking at old photographs that have been posted on the family's website before digging into Vinita-didi's delicious lunch. More on the photographs and lunch soon. 

En route to Chandigarh -- and beyond

(posting much later in the day after writing)

After a slight hiccup of yesterday spent mostly in bed with a stomach bug (it was bound to happen at some point), we're now on a plane headed to Chandigarh. There, we'll visit with Bua, Pops' oldest living sibling, and her daughter, Vinita-didi, before traveling on to first Dehradun and then Shimla.

From there, Ma and Pops will head back to Bombay and I'll head on to Bangalore to see my brother- and sister-in-law -- my devarji and devrani. Bangalore will be my jumping-off point for trips to Mysore, Kochi, Munnar and Madurai (with Kate D.). Once I've conquered the south, I'm hoping to head east to Calcutta and north again to Delhi, though those trips have yet to be sorted out.

Chief accomplishment of the week so far: Getting my new backpack all packed up. Looking forward to seeing how everything faired when we arrive in C'garh!