'Street' Food

One of my favorite parts about visiting India is eating the 'street' food. The variety and the tastiness of the food is like no other. There are vendors lined up alongside Chowpatty, Marine Drive, Nariman Point (all popular points alongside the Indian Ocean), as well as in all the neighborhoods and at anytime of the day there is always a line. Chaat is one of the most popular forms of street food, bhel puri, pani puri, etc. these foods can be found on the menus at restaurants, but in most instances it is most enjoyable and tasty to eat from a street vendor. These vendors have a little cart and set-up shop in the same location, some of them rotate so they will be in one neighborhood during certain hours of the day and then switch to another neighborhood. You order your food based on the level of spiciness as well as based on your religion (Jains don't eat onions, garlic or potatos).  The latest craze this year is grilled sandwiches, we waited in line for an hour at 3 in the afternoon yesterday at a popular spot! It's basically a triple decker chutney sandwich with veggies and cheese or paneer. It's a massive panini so between 8 people we ordered 6 sandwiches and ended up with leftovers. Another popular street food are dosa and vada, these are similar to crepes but stuffed with veggies and fried donuts and served with a lentil soup and coconut chutney. Crowds of people will stand in the street and eat their meals as there are no counter tops or tables. Freshly squeezed fruit juice and sugar cane juice are also popular. There's a new ice cream franchise that is expanding, which is really good, called Natural, they use natural fruit in the ice cream and the best part is they deliver! Domino's, Pizza Hut, Baskin Robbins litter many of the neighborhoods and this was the first time I noticed a Subway down the street from my grandma's so apparently they have expanded their footprint as well.  Lastly, there is pan, which is an after dinner 'mint', it's a leaf which can be stuffed with a multitude of condiments, which are a combination of sweet and syrupy. Tobacco is often times an additive in pan, so in public places you will see stains of red from people spitting out the tobacco from the pan after chewing it. And whenever you are visiting family/friends you will always be offered chai and snacks (or a meal depending on the time of day), even if you just ate you are obligated to consume something. Even at mealtimes if you do not want another piece of nan they will insist and place it on your plate and you have to eat it. Eating is a non-stop activity in India.

Mendhi (Henna)

Mendhi is a common practice in India and nowadays is used to color hair. Mendhi, also known as henna in the States, is made from grounding eucalyptus leaves. A cone is used to apply henna, (similar to icing a cake) if the tip of the cone is small than the lines are thinner and the designs are more intricate. There are books with designs you can select from or you can tell the artist what you prefer and they come up with a design. The artists are quick, in less than 15 minutes both my hands were completed. After the mendhi dries on your hands then fresh lemon is squeezed into a bowl with sugar and rubbed on the hands to bring out the color (turn it a deep red). I also has it applied to my hair, after a couple of hours I rinsed it out and my aunt applied coconut oil, which made my hair silkier.

Choki Dani

We visited Choki Dani, which provides an authentic Rajhastani experience, it's about 30 minutes outside of the city center so we hired a driver to take us there and wait for us to take us back to our hotel since it's difficult to find a cab so late at night in this remote part of town. We arrived at about 7pm and had to wait an hour to buy our tickets for dinner. We did not expect it to be so crowded. Once we purchased our tickets we were escorted to another area where we had to remove our shoes and rinse our hands and then were seated for dinner on the floor. There was a wooden platform for each of us and on this platform was a plate and 3 bowls made of leaves and a glass made of clay where our water was served. There was a bonfire in the middle and about 200 people were seated at a time for dinner. The servers were dressed in traditional Rajhastani clothes, white pants and deep red shirt with a turban. Over the course of the next hour they served us typical Rajhastani food, I wasn't really familiar with this type of cuisine so was looking forward to try it out. There were a few items I really liked, others were not as tasty, however, the experience was great! I was not even able to try everything because I was so stuffed mid way through. Upon completing our meal, a server poured water on our hands above our leaf plate to wash them as we ate with our hands.  Then we retrieved our shoes and checked out the rest of Choki Dani. There were many activities, given the gates closed in a few hours, we had to decide what events to purchase tickets for. We decided to see a traditional dance performance, puppet show (very popular in this region), get a reading done by a palmist and check out a snake charmer performance. The traditional dance was amazing, the women danced with 6 pots on her head, while balancing these pots, she danced on a tray, a sword, etc. The fortune teller read my palm in Hindi, so I didn't quite understand everything but, my mom said the guy said the same three statements to everyone and then the last 2 statements were interchanged across the different customers. So that was disappointing. The snake charmer had a cobra in a basket and played an instrument and the cobra danced, which was really cool.  The puppet show was amusing, the puppeteer had the puppet perform dances by famous people in India based on their personalities.  Our driver kept calling us every half hour to see if we were ready to return to our hotel, but there is so much to see/do there and not enough time most people leave when the gates close at 11pm. After the 3rd call, he got the hint and didn't call us...

Ajmer

We traveled to Ajmer from Jaipur to visit the Darrgah Sharif-tomb of the Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti.  This is a sacred site for Muslims and we happened to visit on the holiest day of the week. As we approached the mosque the street was crowded and there was a lot of pushing and shoving, which became worse when we arrived at the security check point. They have separate entrances for men and women and if you have a camera you have to check it since no photography is allowed and they were pretty diligent in enforcing this rule.  There are many steps and no 'real' queue so it took us about an hour to enter the doors of the mosque. The mosque is quite ornate and the superstition is to tie a string on the pillars surrounding the mosque while making a wish and when your wish comes true to return to the mosque to untie your string. Since you purchase the strings from the vendors outside the gate all the strings are the same so the likelihood that you will untie the same string that you tied when you return is slim, but it supposedly does not impact the outcome of anyone else's wish.  There was a lot of energy in the area and people were very emotional, many were crying in happiness for having the opportunity to visit such a sacred site, others were praying in hopes that their wishes would come true while tieing their string. We did not make it to the main prayer area because of the crowds we got pushed outside one of the doors. Many people on our tour were disappointed that after traveling so far they were unable to get the chance to reach that final destination.

Pushker

Pushker is about 140 km from Jaipur, but given the poor road conditions, it takes about 3 hours to get there by car. Pushker is a very small town and it's claim to fame is having the only Brama Temple in the world. Brama is the god of creation, Vishnu is the god of balance and Shiva is the god of destruction. Pushker has a special meaining for my family (and extended relatives), as the guru they follow actually delivered a lecture under one of the banyan trees in 1974 in this town and as a result a temple was resurected there. So all of our family members were happy that we had a chance to pay our respects at that particular site/temple. Our guru traveled to 84 cities in India to deliver lectures. So our family/relatives try to visit as many of these sites as they can and often times plan their trips around one of these sites. Although, ours happened to be by chance, as our trip to Pushker was a spontaneous decision. Pushker has a similar tourist underground scene as Goa, consumption of marijuana/bang is quite popular in this otherwise sleepy town.

Jaipur-Pink City

We flew into Jaipur a few days ago. Traveling in India is challenging, given the overpopulation one needs to watch their purse at all times and we remove all of our jewelry. My grandma was nervous about our excursion so we got a cell phone so anyone could reach us at any time. Both the domestic terminal at Mumbai and Jaipur were impressive. Unfortunately, the international terminal at Mumbai needs to be renovated as it is not a good first impression of the city/country.  We were warned that it was much colder in Jaipur, however, it was hard to imagine if it's 90 degress in Mumbai that it cold enough for a jacket.   It is mostly desert so it gets really hot during the day and cools off quite a bit in the evenings. Jaipur is in Rajastan, which is north of Mumbai and has a population of 3.4 million. Jaipur is the second best planned city in the world, Paris is the first. Jaipur is known as the pink city given all the buildings/walls were painted pink. There are nine main gates to enter the city, if all gates are closed, no one can enter the city. It is a popular tourist destination and we went during the peak season so we met people from all over the world during our tour. We visited many of the forts and palaces, the most impressive was Amber Palace where many Bollywood movies are filmed.  The other cool palace was the Jal Mahal, which is a palace in the water.  The other interesting spot was Jantar Mantar, which was designed by one of the kings who was very knowledgeable in astrology/mathematics. He build devices which allowed one to tell time, date, zodiac sign based on where the sun's shadow fell! 

Swimming

A few of my neighbors go swimming so I was invited to join them one day. They belong to this fitness center, which is no longer extending membership to new customers so it is quite exclusive. The swimming area is partioned by male and females. Upon entering the women's quarters there is a sauna, hot tub and pool, which is the size of a pool in one's backyard. Whereas, the men's pool is olympic sized. There were about a dozen women, half of them were lounging in the chaise chairs. Everyone was dressed in a one piece suit and wearing a swimming cap. I thankfully packed a pair of swimming shorts to wear with my 2-piece and was able to rent a cap from the front desk. Even so I still felt out of place. I swam laps for awhile, but most of the women were hanging out chatting in the pool. There was a small kiddy pool connected to our pool, but no kids were there. It was an interesting experience. The irony is the pool is alongside Chowpatty beach, a popular beach in Mumbai. However, you will not find Indians swimming/sunbathing at the majority of beaches in India. Instead there are food stalls in the sand and people hanging out in their 'street' clothes.

World's largest home

Mukesh Ambani is the 5th richest man in world. He is head of Reliance,  petrochemical industries, and just build a 27-story home in Mumbai. From my grandma's balcony one can view his home.  At night it is lit up with different colored lights. Since it's only a few blocks from my grandma's flat we decided to check it out one evening. Upon arriving at his home guards were stationed within the 18 foot gates. The first 6 floors is a garage, there are 3 hellipads, a swimming pool and a theater. There were other people who were also curious at the grandeur of his home and we were all trying to take photos, but the guards would not allow it.