The Taj Mahal

It took 22 years to build the Taj Mahal. Shah Jahan, a Mogul emperor, built it for his second wife.

The Taj Mahal Crowd

I am going to be in Delhi for the next week and a half so it provide a great opportunity to see the sites close to here. I thought that Agra where the Taj is relatively close. We got up at 5am to leave the apartment by 6am but didn't get there til 11am. I slept most of the way but woke up to something thumbing on the window. I was startled to see a monkey pressing its face to the window. I thought at first it's a bad dream. Side-effects of the monkey attack I had in Mumbia but it turned out to be real. We were at the toll about to cross the state line and there was a guy with a monkey on the leash doing tricks.. the monkey was doing tricks. There was another guy with a rattle snake and flute next to him trying to entertain us with the snake dance. Then vendors started flocking our windows to sell stuff..I wanted to go back to sleep and close the curtain on this freak show but couldn't tell what was triggering all this. Then I noticed a nice black car parked in front of us and a naive tourist giving money to one of the monkey guys.. Ah silly tourists have to always ruin it for the rest of us. He slowly learned his lesson as more and more people started lining outside his window for change. Although the Taj is amazing it does bring out all these tourists and in turn vendors. I felt like I was haggled more around the Taj than anywhere else in India.

Road Games

On Friday I went to Delhi to drive from there go to a wedding in Rohtak. The drive was beautiful but long so we needed some entertainment. We found it chasing this car that we suspected had a kid in the trunk. 4 of us and our driver were crammed in a sedan for 2+ hours to drive to the wedding. We had been driving for awhile when our driver said he saw something moving in the car in front of us trunk. The trunk was open so he pulled next to them to tell the car full of people that they forgot to close the trunk. They entirely ignored us so he joked, "what you got a kid in there or something?" which they did not respond to! This led us all believe that there had to be a kid in there so spent the next 45 minutes tailgating this car to see if the trunk would open over a road bump and we could see the kid. A couple times the door opened slightly more and everyone swore they saw something wearing a sweater move in the back. I yelled out the window "hey let the kid free, or kid we got some cookies you want it." But none of our please got us closer to getting the kid out of the trunk. Then it stopped on the side of the road and some of their kids (the privileged ones who got to ride in the car) came out to get chips and stuff. While they had stopped the trunk opened slightly more on its own. There was definitely something moving it and it wasn't a dog. We tried tailgating the car after the stop to open it ourselves they got wise to us and speeded away. Hopefuly the kid made it ok.

Disclaimer: this is not legal in India and could be entirely fictional but very funny (at least to us bored passengers).

You can learn a lot from a walk in the park

I have found Indians in general to be more sentimental than Americans. Often I see inspirational quotes at the most random places. On Wednesday Gina and I went on a walk at one of the major parks in Hyderabad and discovered all kinds of things. We saw peacocks, rabbits and got all kinds of life messages along the way. I uploaded some of the best ones.

Learning The Art of Giving

On Saturday we went back to the Rainbow School to visit the kids. You may remember we went a month ago to help paint the new preschool structure. If you've forgotten, the Rainbow School was started by a Googler's wife. It is a public school that is partially sustained by the government, non-profits and contributors. We wanted to go back to spend more time with the kids and see the teachers again. Last time we visited we noticed that the book library could use some new books and that the kids love to draw, so we wanted to also take some drawing materials.

Jen, Adam, Mike, Gina and I were all excited to stop at the bookstore on our way to the school to get the kids fun things. We all picked things that we liked. I wanted to get them drawing pencils, crayons and coloring books because those are the things I always like playing with my nephews. I was like a kid at a candy store in the bookstore. I was overwhelmed with all the options and wanted everything. I kept thinking what would my nephews like because they are around the same age of the young kids. After getting all the gifts we headed to the school. Each of us had at least one bag of goodies in hand.

When we walked in it was lunch time and all the kids were seating outside eating. They were all so excited to see us. There was a chorus of "hello madame" followed by big smiles. I was really struck that not one of the kids asked what was in the bag or made a dash to get a gift. Even when we took some of the things out to read books in classrooms or show the teachers no one seemed really interested in the gifts. I can't think of a time where I have walked in a room with kids somebody asking what they were getting. When I go to my sister's house my nephews first question is usually did you bring me a gift? I mean, who doesn't like a present, especially young kids.

I really learned from the kids that day because they were not interested in the gifts. What they were most interested in was sharing with us. Instead of asking to use the new color pencils and drawing paper, they had me seat down and one by one the second graders would bring me the things they drew as a gift. They were so excited to give me their few drawings as a gift and have me pronounce their names. When I tried to teach them a song (the only nursery song I know) they shared five amazing songs with laughter and clapping. Then they wanted to teach me how to dance, which was very comical. More than anything the kids just wanted to share with us and just wanted our time. The kids were so full of joy, laughter and genuine interest in sharing. Our time and interest made a bigger impact on them than anything we could bring them. I really enjoyed my with them and want to go back soon to learn more.