A Winter in India

The image above is a composite that Pam made of the Matrimonials section in the Sunday newspaper. One can learn a lot about a culture by looking at the want ads, commercial and personal. As with all abbreviations it takes a member of the culture to fully understand all the “not so obvious” meanings to all the shorthand. These ads were placed by families, looking to arrange marriages for their elligible young adults

Today was another beautiful, post-monsoon, pre-winter, dry day in Delhi. We are told that there is definitely a winter season here, where wool is needed. It may be winter in the astronomical sense, but what about raw data to crunch on. New Delhi is on approximately the same latitude as Miami, Florida, about 26° N. I hope it doesn’t get too cold. Our apartment has no means of creating heat. Imagine a living space with no woodstove, furnace or electric heater. Well, a boy from New England has got to be more cold resistant than the locals. I’ll see if my eighteen year-old boy nephew Robbie likes it when he comes at Christmas time. Me, I’m a 57 year old non-boy who was entertaining thoughts of Arizona! I remember as a kid meeting some elderly distant cousin Robert who was visiting my grandfather. Granky (best that my dad could do with Grampy when he was a wee lad and it carried over) had on his string undershirt and I had my usual summertime skimpy “Pigpen” outfit, and we were both sweating. Cousin Robert had on a wool cardigan sweater! Man, was his internal thermostat screwed up! I hope that I’m not considered elderly yet, but I may become the Cousin Robert of my generation in the Baker crowd. See my rambling shows that I am approaching elderliness.

The big accomplishment of the day was getting an internet connection into our apartment.
This morning a three-man crew came and ran the wire from the pole to an inside wall-jack. Later another man came to check up on the installation and had us sign a satisfied customer receipt. Later yet another man came to check that there was a dial tone emanating from the wire that went to the jack. I signed another satisfied customer receipt. Then a lone delivery person brought us a Customer Handbook for the phone that we aren’t getting (just broadband). Finally, a very nice young man came and got all the o’s and 1’s happy from the new modem to our Macintosh. This took all day, but luckily it was another holiday. We’ll miss the guys down at the rocking local internet café, but we shall cope. The internet café does offer scanning, printing and MatchMaking so we shall surely go there frequently.

Today was the birthday celebration of the Sikh Guru Nanak. He was the sixteenth century founder of the Sikh religion, which is monotheistic and emphasizes tolerance for all religious people. Here is a great quote from his teachings. “There is one god and many paths, and the name of god is Truth.”